Heartbeat
by Jkit45
Summary: Africa is a place where life and death exist at the same time, a heartbeat apart. RE5 Novelization, non-cannon. Lots of flashbacks. Hardcore ChrisxJill. Some ClairexLeon.
1. Chapter 1

I OWN NOTHING

 **EDIT: This is a repost from last summer. It's been edited and will be continued through this summer. A lot of the embarrassing continuity issues are fixed.**

Here is a shameless ChrisxJill rendition of Resident Evil 5. I've wanted to do this for quite a while, and have talked about it several times with my friend from . My personal adaptation of RE5. I'm not sure the market exists for this fic since it's such an old game, but here goes nothing. Also—I've been out of touch with RE for quite a while, so some of this might be out of touch with current new cannons, though it isn't cannon anyway (if that wasn't obvious enough). : )

 **Chapter 1: Welcome to Africa**

" _Let me claim that Africa and I kept company for a while and then parted ways as if we were both party to relations with a failed outcome. Or say I was afflicted with Africa like a bout of a rare disease from which I have not managed a full recovery."_

-Barbara Kingsolver, _The Poisonwood Bible_

The sun was hot, very unlike the sun he was used to from North America. Upstate New York's summers could hardly compare. He'd once thought those were hot days. Fishing and swigging beer which always warmed too quickly.

This was hot. Real sun. Too hot. The sort of sun which threatened to bake his skin into leather. Chris grimaced, shielding his eyes as he slammed the door to the old jeep he'd been provided with to perform his patrolling duties.

MASINNI: _Protecting species. Educating people._

The emblem for the private owned park stamped onto the rusting silvery door. He stepped across the sandy soil, stopping as he realized what he thought was a snare was actually a trick of the light.

Poachers were tireless, he'd quickly learned upon arrival at Masinni, but his training overqualified him for this security job. Chris sighed a breath of relief—no snare meant no paperwork and no stake outs for returning poachers. Morning grew late and he'd have work to do at the office anyway. Inside, and out of reach of the sun. He slammed the door and restarted the engine.

Chris eased the jeep onto the jouncing dirt road. _No staking out. No more sunburn._ He breathed the dust and warmth and something sweet which always hung in the air out here. Apparently the sweet smell meant the rains were coming soon, and then the mosquitoes. He hadn't yet experienced the wet season.

The sky had been red in the morning too, redder than normal. Massini boasted photo tours for visitors and all sorts of savanna animal education. Chris had watched it rise from the small visitor lodge where he always got coffee for free as a perk for his work. Kevin, his boss, usually sat with him in the morning, "A sign." He'd said, a thick Nairobi accent as he'd done his schooling in the city, "Red sky in morning—what the sailors used to say. Means there're storms coming."

Kevin was all about the weather. Different levels of haze, the shapes of clouds and the way they moved across the crisp skies. All pointed to different metrological phenomena. Kevin was a climate scientist, after all. Chris didn't look much at the sky, he looked down, through the trees. He looked for a sign, his own signs. Signs which somehow he expected would be easier to find.

Masinni was little more than canned safaris for tourists and dusty roads and thicket. Brush filled with endangered life which went on despite everything, blissfully unaware of the dangers which chased their pelts and meat. He slowed, letting impalas trot across the road in front of him.

Chris hadn't considered how difficult it would be until he arrived. His job wasn't any more or less stressful than the B.S.A.A. had been. Out here he was a mercenary, a hired gun on the preserve. His job was to make poachers and cartel runners think twice about crossing these lands. Kijuju's boarders neighbored the undeveloped acreage beyond the park fences, and their government was unstable, causing constant shifts. He sacrificed his position of power when he'd turned from the B.S.A.A., and now he was out here, in search of evidence which didn't want to be found.

For some reason he'd expected to find her sitting cross-legged and reading a book underneath one of the acacias.

Two months in and there was nothing yet, plenty of poaching attempts thwarted, not the intended goal of his arrival at Massini, but Chris did his best to find peace in it.

He parked the Jeep in front of the office, stepping out once again and heading into the building. Fans ran, but it did little to cool the muggy air. Sheva, his field partner for longer patrols, sat at the desk, her legs up on the surface, "Chris." She greeted.

"Sheva." He said. She reloaded a pistol clip, and then reached for another one, "Planning…for something?"

"Haven't taken count in a while."

Chris checked the closet and back room before sitting down, feeling Sheva's eyes on him, "You planning for something?"

He didn't reply, instead sat at his desk, waiting for the computer to come on. They used to complain about the connection at the B.S.A.A., and they hadn't been in the middle of thousands of kilometers of virgin wilderness. He tapped his hand lightly against the side of the screen.

"If you break it, you'll make it worse."

There was a distant noise, for a moment he thought it was thunder and Kevin was right. The rains would come in impressive storms, and with the heavy hazy air it was only a matter of time. But the rumbling continued, building steadily. Someone was coming, and it set him on edge. No one used the access road. "Yeah..." Chris paused, standing, pulling his Samurai Edge from its holster.

"Chris."

"Shhh. Get down."

"Chris, it's a safari."

"They don't come this way."

"Chris." More aggressively, at his side with her hand on his wrist, "Stand down. We're not pulling a gun on anyone."

 _Who knows who that is? You don't know half of what's going on in Kijuju, and that boarder is just a few klicks from here!_ "Who is it?" He demanded, peering around the corner. A white pickup truck he didn't recognize, too big and too new to be anything running on the preserve.

"Kevin." Sheva hissed, "earlier than I thought."

"He get a new car?" Something felt wrong, electricity hung in the air. Soldier's sense, his sense, the one which kept him alive. Maybe it was the static in the atmosphere if Kevin was right about the storms.

"Chris, stand down. They're friendlies."

"They're?" Sheva walked out the open door, into the driveway. She was unarmed. Sheva was military trained, she wouldn't step out unless she had reason but he couldn't bring himself out the door. He kept his hand on the warm metal of the handle, ready to flip the safety off the weapon.

They crawled closer, dust from the road spraying up from the tires. Chris' heart thumped, Sheva waved and smiled. Chris relaxed his grip. _What in the world?_

The truck stopped in front of Sheva, two sets of hands coming out the open windows, _"You going to shoot me, Chris? I know you're in there!"_

 _Claire._

Chris pulled back. He stood in the doorway. She stepped out of the truck as if she were on vacation, boots crunching on the gravel. She wore a tank top, shoulders lightly burnt, a baseball hat which she pulled off her head. Claire didn't hesitate, he did.

She put her arms around his neck, "How did you find me?" He demanded, she pushed away.

"You need a damn shower." She said.

Chris wasn't in the mood for small talk, "You could have been followed. How did you get here?" His carefully constructed cover crumbled before his eyes, already dust, gone before he knew there was a problem. Kevin drove goddamn Claire out to the field office and still sat in the goddamn truck like it was a normal day, "What the fuck are you thinking?"

She was already inside, seating herself on the surface of the desk, "I recon the same thing you are. I see you've met Sheva."

"Claire." Sheva smiled and shook her hand.

"You're a hard man to find, but you taught me, remember? Called in some favors. Can we have a minute?"

Sheva nodded, "Of course." She walked out the door and into the truck, slamming the door.

"Claire. Do you know how dangerous this is?"

"Yes. No one knows you're here."

"You could have been seen."

 _"_ Doesn't matter. _No one knows you're here."_

"Why are you here?"

"The same reason you are." She said.

"Enlighten me."

She cocked her head to the side. Just as stubborn as he was but absolutely infuriating in this moment, "We're here for a Terra Save fundraiser. A lot of our donors are into safari vacations so we're at a resort about a couple hours from here. I suggested safaris to Rebecca who in turn suggested it to our board—everyone's giving her credit for the idea. She doesn't know why I suggested it. Sheva is the one who found you, she's B.S.A.A., undercover, and knows how to keep her mouth shut. She's keeping an eye on possible terrorist developments across the border which might, very well, have operatives moving across this preserve. As far as she knows, you're doing the same. Sheva doesn't know why you're actually here. I didn't blow your cover."

Maybe Claire spoke reason, but Chris couldn't stop thinking of his cover being blown, the fact that there was another party, someone's life was hanging in the balance. _Her_ life depended on no one knowing he'd come to this continent. He needed to stay missing, dead as the newspapers said, he'd visited Claire once after the article ran, too guilty to not let her know it was fake. Now he regretted it, "What the hell are you thinking?"

"You bolted. Left me with the mess. But don't worry, this is covert, B.S.A.A. hardly knows we're here. They're standing on high alert for a call, but as of right now this is a Terra Save fundraiser." Claire stated.

"Why are you here, then? Shouldn't you be at the damn hotel?"

"The same reason you are."

"Not good enough." It had been hard to get to Africa, leads chased all over America and then across Europe. Then the process of finding a job in here, close enough to keep an eye on Kijuju without his face ever crossing the border.

"The gun. It was listed in the recovery from the last mission you were on. Jill's pistol. The one that's on your leg right now. You found it there, on one of the bodies. You missed one database when you stole it from evidence. After I found out you were alive, I went back to your last mission paperwork, combed through it for weeks before I realized. A Samurai Edge II."

"It's just an old pistol."

"You don't believe that and neither do I. I'm right, aren't I? She was my friend." He didn't answer, and supposed the fact the very same S.T.A.R.S. issue weapon was in the holster on his leg was answer enough, "Do you want to know what I think?"

"You'll tell me anyway."

Claire didn't deflate as he wanted, she smiled, and that in turn made him deflate, "I think if we get her before he—"

"He's dead." Chris cut her off.

Claire continued, "Sheva doesn't know anything about her. You'll want a shower, and we'll find you something to wear. Sheva's your date, I've got to give a damn speech. We won't talk once we're there. Any questions?"

"How the fuck did you find me?"

"I didn't. Well, I followed the same leads you did, carefully, mostly on my own while on Terra Save business. Umbrella was founded in what is now Kijuju. That's where they did all their research, and Terra Save works around here anyway. The pieces fell together. Sheva and I got into contact, all while under her cover, of course. As far as the world knows, you're dead."

Claire opened the door, and waved Sheva inside.

"Sheva Alomar." She stuck out her hand, Chris shook it, "I hope you can forgive me for the ruse, Mr. Redfield. Your reputation precedes you. It is an honor."

He swallowed, a strange déjà vu of introductions. Granted, he'd been simply going by Christian, the name on his fake passport, rather than Christopher, "Just Chris, thanks."

"On behalf of the West African branch, welcome to Africa." She grinned at him. Chris smiled back.

"Looks like we have a fundraiser to get to."

Thanks for reading! I hope you all enjoyed. I have a lot I want to do with this (and of course, lots and lots of Chris/Jill ). Please review! :)


	2. Chapter 2

The rating of this is going to have to change to M. Mostly for drug use, violence and language. There will be other adult themes but I'll try to always put warnings in the AN. Off work today so I'm really going to town on this.

WARNING: DRUG USE

Thanks for all the hits already. Love you my silent readers! : )

 **Chapter 2: Back to Work**

" **They elongate on the pale slender stalks of their longing, like sunflowers with heavy heads. You can shield them with your body and soul, trying to absorb that awful rain, but they'll still move toward him. Without cease, they'll bend to his light" –Barbara Kingsolver,** _ **The Poisonwood Bible.**_

The fundraiser was large, and for some reason the only thing Chris thought of was whether or not Masinni Preserve would get more business from it. That was good: the money would let them keep paying rangers to protect their animals. Sheva stood, holding a glass of champagne which she passed from hand to hand while not actually drinking.

Several pictures of the suspects loaded onto a B.S.A.A. issue phone.

"How do you like it here?"

"A bit warm." Chris said, Sheva smiled at him, bright white teeth and thick makeup around her dark eyes. She moved away from him in her black open backed gown, heels tapping lightly on the tile floor.

Chris paused a moment before following her, "Claire's a funny woman. She always gives good speeches."

"You've seen her talk before?"

"On Youtube." She acted as if she was going to say more, but didn't. Sheva waved to someone.

A redheaded man pushed his way through the group, "Sheva." He took her hand.

"Mr. Irving." She gave the man a nod. He wore pin striped pants and a dark purple blazer. Sheva seemed to trust him, but all this time, being called his nick name probably wasn't his best idea. They decided the name change on the road, "This is my boyfriend."

Chris stuck out his hand, "Joseph."

"Ricardo Irving. Pleasure." He stepped away, rubbing his eyes.

"I never understand him." Sheva said, softly.

Chris watched Irving disappear into the crowd. His sister remained on stage, talking with Terra Save officials, "what about him?"

"He's so skittish." Sheva nodded back toward the crowd, Chris watched Irving sheepishly maneuver through the crowd, straightening as one tall man turned toward him, "Give me your phone." He handed it to Sheva, and she started to scroll through the photos.

"Is that-?" He looked awfully familiar, Chris' heart hammered. Wearing a finely tailored black suit, his hair combed back, but the same person as the dirty mug shot.

"Yes."

"What's Irving doing with him?"

"Seems a bit afraid of him."

"Should we be concerned?" Chris asked.

"Sent a message to H.Q." Sheva closed the phone, "No, I know him personally, and he knows I come to a lot of these fundraisers to mingle rather than work. As far as he knows, I'm a warden at a game park, but he's been a donor for the B.S.A.A. and Terra Save."

"I see." Chris watched him leave.

"Relax." Sheva said, pressing close to him again, reaching up to squeeze his arm, "It's just a fundraiser. All those B.O.W.s are much more dangerous than anything here." People stood around, laughing and drinking, wearing clothes which were much too expensive to wear in a place where on the other side of the boarder at least half the citizens were going to bed hungry. Chris' neck sweat beneath his tie. It was getting claustrophobic.

"These people are scarier than the B.O.W.s."

"They won't bite too hard." Sheva laughed, and she started to walk again. People moved to their tables, sitting for dinner.

"I need some air." Chris said.

"Alright." Sheva seemed indifferent, "I'll save you a seat."

He had no intention on sitting down. _No use risking being seen. This is a damn cluster fuck as it is._ Chris still wondered what in the world Claire had been thinking, but as she stood to give her opening speech at the podium, Chris slipped out the back door.

He did need air, and hoped to hell no one would drop any mention about the B.S.A.A. over the course of the dinner talks. So Chris wandered, moving down the tile hallways at the hotel. The static from the microphone spilled into the hallway, he fled further.

 _Your sister is funny. She's a good speaker._

Chris clenched his fists and swallowed. _And here you are, retreating like a damn idiot, hiding. Always hiding._ He didn't even know what Claire had done with Terra Save recently or what currently went on at the B.S.A.A. He knew that he'd run and hadn't looked back.

He knew why he'd run. The face that haunted his dreams and came to visit him in the middle of the night. The dead woman who refused to stay where she rested. He wasn't sure if any of his suspicions were founded.

Chris entered the bathroom, running the sink until the water cooled and splashing a generous helping on his generous face. Someone handed him a paper towel, he took it, "Hot in there." A familiar voice.

"Irving." He nodded politely, "Not used to the heat here yet."

"How long you been in town?"

Chris paused, "not too long."

"I never got used to it, but I hear some do." Irving carefully stood in the mirror, inspecting his jacket.

Perhaps he and Sheva should have worked out a better cover story. _Well, it is what it is now._ _Disaster, mess. No damn planning._ He went to walk out, "Eh, Joey?"

"Yeah?"

"I was going to go out for a smoke, want one?"

 _Shit._

Chris paused, considering. Nicotine sounded damn good, he licked his lips. Besides, Irving's little terrorist friend might even join them. This had the potential to be insightful while keeping him far away from any possibility of bumping into a B.S.A.A. operative who might recognize him (which there were plenty working hand in hand with Terra Save), "Sure."

The temperature was more comfortable with the sun setting, but the warmth radiated off the cement, "What do you do around here?" Chris asked, trying to get the conversation away from himself, knowing he was being risky by talking one on one with Irving, no way to contact Sheva since he'd refused radios saying he didn't want anything to do with the B.S.A.A., and now not sure how to remedy the situation. Paying for his stubbornness. _You and Sheva met in the U.S. Both on work. Now both are in town for the fundraiser, Sheva knew the woman giving the opening speech, you've never met her._ That was the basic outline they'd pinned down.

As long as he didn't get grilled for the details it was fine, and he didn't.

"Work for a local hospital. Sales stuff." Irving said, taking a last draw before dropping the butt to the ground and crushing it with his heel. He had a habit of talking with his hands, reaching out like a magician grabbing coins from mid air, "Nothing all too exciting."

"Must be something interesting." Chris said.

"Naw, naw, Joey. Us business men keep our hands clean. Pencil pushing phone call making guy, that's me."

"Heh." Chris couldn't help himself, thinking of business men he knew who didn't quite meet the clean hands standard, though he supposed white collar crime didn't typically cause the kinds of things which made it hard to sleep at night, "Hospital in town here?"

"Yep, Tricell started it up. Host Terra Save volunteers, healthcare for anyone who needs it."

"What are you selling, then? I hope you don't mind me asking."

Irving made the motion of grabbing the invisible coins again, then rubbed his nose and sniffled. Either it was allergies or another behavior which he recognized from his S.T.A.R.S. days. _Clean handed business man, eh?_ "Medical equipment, all sorts of things."

They stood for a few minutes in silence, Irving twitching slightly, tapping his foot, "You know, I hope you don't mind Joey, I'm going to take a hit. You're welcome to some. Pure, and not illegal here."

That caught Chris off guard, "Excuse me?" He pulled out a small canister, shaking a bit of white powder onto the side of his hand and burying his nose into the pile, inhaling deeply.

Chris blinked, "I'll pass, thanks." Irving coughed and shook his head.

"Suit yourself."

He waited, counting slowly to thirty while Irving went on, albeit livelier, about selling respirators to a hospital somewhere in Italy and that the money wasn't coming in fast enough, "I should probably get back to Sheva." Chris said after a few more minutes.

They'd been outside for a while with no sign of the target. Though, there was no evidence and thus no apprehension, learning social circles was one of the main goals, and Irving clearly was in this man's social circle. He excused himself, leaving Irving outside, and passing none other than the tall man in the black suit on his way back. _Perfect damn timing._ He reached for a radio in his ear which he didn't have. At the time, it seemed it would be better to distance himself as much as possible, but now he wasn't so sure.

He was letting his frustration cloud his better judgment—something he couldn't afford, and vowed to put his head back into the game.

Chris didn't turn around, instead paused, glancing behind him. Irving fished around in his pocket, handing the man a stack of paper currency in return for another canister. _You've got to be shitting me._ Chris put his head down and kept walking. Had to get back.

Sheva glared at him when he made it back to the table.

"You smell like smoke. Where have you been?" He understood exactly why she was less than pleased, vowing to himself again to pull it together. They were supposed to be a team.

"We need to talk."

"Upstairs?" Sheva asked. They had a shared hotel room. Chris stood, she followed, "Your sister gave a good speech as always."

"Sorry I missed it." Chris said.

"I'm sure she understands." Sheva closed the door of their room, twisting the bolt, "You're allegedly dead, after all."

"We're partners. I'm sorry I ran off without a radio. You were right."

Sheva glanced sideways, "From here on out we're in this together. Let's start fresh."

Her assurances eased him, and Chris relaxed, "Does Claire work with Irving? We need to keep an eye on him, from a distance."

"What happened?" Sheva folded her arms.

"He offered me cocaine."

"What?"

"He's your friend."

Sheva shook her head, "Acquaintance, first of all. Explains why he never returns phone calls. Sit tight." She bent down, reaching under the bed and pulling out a black bag and fishing for a small radio unit. It was encased in a rubber box, various antennas and controls to conceal signals. Exactly what an undercover operative would need, "I'm going to put a call into H.Q." Chris watched, "Can you get eyes on Irving?" She handed him a micro headset from her bag. He placed it into his ear.

"On it." He said, immediately testing the little device, connected to Sheva's matching one.

"And Chris?"

"What?"

"Welcome back."

He nodded, stepping out the door.

Welp. That got awkward. Thanks for reading! I feel like my brain is coming out, and my brain is a bit of a scary place to be, but honestly, I imagined Irving always having a problem of this sort. Please review : )


	3. Chapter 3

**Thanks again to all my readers and for the review!**

 **This is a Jill chapter and a Valenfield angst pile.**

 **Warning: mild torture scene.**

 **Chapter 3: Captive**

" **This place is as familiar to her now as a living room in the house of a life she never bargained for." –Barbara Kingsolver,** _ **The Poisonwood Bible**_

Hands numb to the point of being painful, circulation cut off by the tension of the cuffs around her wrists. Jill's head lulled back and forth, she panted, trying not to make too much noise, eyes planted on the floor, "Well, got anything to say?" She kept her mouth shut, did her best to stay on her feet, greasy hands wrapped around her arms.

It was strange, dark, smelling something like foliage. Crates staked around the edges of the stone walled room. She inhaled fresh air, hungrily. Humid and damp, but fresh none the less. A gentle breeze came from somewhere. It had been a long time since she'd last felt it, though this still wasn't technically outside. Florescent floodlights lined the walls, shooting bright beams through the cave. Perhaps a garage of some kind? Perhaps near an exit? Not that it mattered; she wasn't going to get too far, not tonight at least. Jill coughed, clearing the water out of her throat, staring at the trough in front of her. Hair stuck to her face in wet, tangled chunks.

No. Nothing to say. What did they want her to say? Nothing. What was she supposed to know? She was here, locked deep underground, carted through different hospital rooms.

"The Terra Save has been moving people around near the borderlands, more than a few B.S.A.A. alumni were at their latest meeting. A little too close for a coincidence. How do they know we're here?" The man talking looped around her. Head down at the floor, wet and muddy from the liquid as it dripped from her body. Where was she now? She didn't know. Far from the facility, they didn't do this sort of thing in the facility, no, they did much worse things.

The man behind her gripped a fistful of her hair, "Last chance."

Her voice was raspy, choked from exertion, "I don't know."

The vat of murky water, suddenly in her face and then she was submerged in it. She knew to stay calm, that panicking herself would make it worse. They kept her under for a long time, too long. Jill felt the sharp threads of panic gripping her around her shoulders, she instinctively pulled back but they kept her under, holding her there while she struggled. Finally, she was pulled out, coughing a mouthful of water, wheezing, gasping open mouthed for the same sweet fresh air.

B.S.A.A. was here, for one reason or another. It didn't matter. She was dead and that meant they weren't coming for her, "No idea at all?"

She panted and coughed, opening her mouth to say something only to find it filled with water again. He brought her up and pushed her down, over and over, until she was dizzy and nauseous and hardly able to breathe.

 _Jill stood on the track, stretching down to touch her toes, the little stupid plastic colorful flags waving in the wind. Claire shouted something to her, hanging on the arm of her boyfriend. Claire waved, Chris stood beside her, on crutches after mildly damaging the ligaments in his leg when he took a tumble into the valley when he and Jessica were attacked by B.O.W.s, "You going to win?" He asked her._

" _You know, Claire was supposed to do this with me." Fundraising and mingling was usually a Redfield thing, Jill tended to keep to herself. She wasn't sure how she felt about all the families around, dozens of people she didn't know, sitting in the stands of the rented high school track and staring down at them. It was going to be a little awkward watched running her ass off._

 _Though, this event was Chris' baby, and he was out of running shape from the injuries. A five kilometer was nothing, a drop in the bucket. She had to fill in. Especially now that their relationship exceeded the 'just partners' they spend years so determinedly claiming._

 _Chris turned around, grimacing and looking back at her, "She's a little preoccupied." Apparently trying to get a good taste of the new boyfriend, her tongue about as far as it could go into his open mouth. Jill looked away._

 _PDA was never a strong suit of Jill's, especially not when dating was forbidden in the B.S.A.A. A rule which no one seemed to follow. She and Chris kept it quiet. It was a new thing, developing in the heat of the moment when they'd been on the Queen Zenobia._

" _I'm sure she's…" Chris cleared his throat, "Going to be cheering you on."_

" _I'm sure she will be." Claire used to be a cross country runner in high school, Jill knew, and they'd gone through a period of making a morning jog their girl time, but they lived in different cities now._

 _Jill finished second only behind Keith, and collapsed panting on the ground from running a silly race as if she'd been chased. Some part of her mused that it would count as her work out of the day. Claire came up to her, holding Chris' camping cooler with new boy friend's help. That was Claire. Constantly on the move, not that Jill blamed her after Steve and the explosive on and offs with Leon. She was opening her mouth, going to ask his name, "Jill, I have a present for you."_

" _Claire—" And she tried unsuccessfully to roll away, pummeled by ice water._

Jill coughed, wheezed, and couldn't breathe, the cave was unpleasantly drafty now, her breath catching in lungs which struggled to fill, "Go…to he-" She vomited water before able to get the words out, head fuzzy.

Chris was dead now. And she would be soon if this kept up. Claire was hopefully alright, somewhere in Terra Save. She was a big girl, Jill's right hand man, and she trusted Claire would keep the good fight going in their absences. _He'd_ get bored of Jill eventually, especially now that there was no longer Chris to lord her over which, as far as she guessed, was the entire point in the first place.

 _Dangers of getting involved on the job. What you signed up for. He's dead now._

Maybe he was around somewhere, watching over her? That was what the stories said, what she chose to believe in, that he was waiting someplace better than this where she would one day bitch him the hell out for going as stupidly as he did. Jill swallowed the lump in her burning throat, trying to breathe, "Better put her back. Boss will be pissed."

She wondered how they expected her to know anything. Aside from the newspaper article Wesker held in her face while she broke down into a sobbing puddle, grinning his freshly whitened toothed grin, she had no contact with the outside world.

Fucking Chris, wrapping his car around a tree at ninety miles per hour on a deserted patch of highway. Dead while she was here, alive, and royally screwed. Jill struggled for her balance, and eventually got her feet under her as they marched her back into the mountain side, deep into a hidden facility. In the morning she'd feel better: she'd catch her breath, and start figuring out another escape plan. The nineteenth one, to be exact.

It would keep her from going mad.

 _They aren't looking for you._

No one was.

Because she was dead.

Jill, have some hope! Thanks for reading! (I'm not sure if I like this chapter stylistically so it might be revised soon) Review if you'd like : )


	4. Chapter 4

**Thanks again for the hits on this story! Sorry for the delay on the update. Been super busy lately!**

 **Chapter 4:**

Sheva moved through the marketplace, breathing in the humid air. She exhaled, slowly, making a point not to show any traces of fear. They were just investigating, lost tourists in a small town, checking in with their contact to see if he had any idea where Irving had run to.

Irving left the hotel. _"You got offered goddamn cocaine by the guy but can't seem to find where he drove to?"_ Claire's angry call, patched through by headquarters. Sheva knew they'd find him. There weren't a whole lot of places to go in Kijuju, after all.

She and Chris passed through the border without incident, passed armed men with wild, bloodshot eyes. Probably hopped up on something highly unhealthy, she didn't worry about it. What they needed was their contact—the weapons he could provide them. They needed that her mother tongue was the most common language in Kijuju, "remember, we're flying under the radar."

"Yes, Chris." He grew tiresome. Sheva trained specifically for undercover work. She was a polyglot, good with people, had a degree in Wildlife Ecology, a perfect cover for anything the B.S.A.A. needed of her, especially out in these rural areas.

Chris, on the other hand, specialized in combat. Sheva knew how to fly under the radar. Him, well, he'd hid decently enough on the game preserve.

Chris sidestepped, eyeing everyone warily, as if they were going to pounce on him at any moment. Sheva forced herself to keep walking, calmly, _"The butcher's shop isn't too far from where you are. Down the street and around the corner. There are signs are in English for you, American."_

"Appreciate it." Chris replied, tersely to the call.

The mission was simple enough: an afternoon in Kijuju. People were tense after a new government change, and there were multiple reports of B.O.W. transport. A quick investigation, try to locate Irving and figure out where he was going, and see if he truly was talking with criminals. Tricell would be sure to do away with him if he had any proven bad connections.

"People seem a bit restless." She muttered, turning to Chris. There were street vendors, but they didn't watch their tables. Some paced back and forth in the street, as if paranoid of an invisible attacker. A man stood in his doorway, staring blankly somewhere beyond the horizon, turning over a filet knife in his hands.

"Glad I'm not the only one thinking that."

A large plaster building with blue shudders in the corner, MEAT MARKET, painted across the awning, faded from black to a chipping brown in the relentless sun, "Ah, Ms. Alomar." A voice called from inside, "I'll meet you around the back."

So they walked, passed a group of penned goats, munching hay and eerily unaware of their impending doom. Sheva stepped by them, into the cool shade provided by the building. The kill floor—an assortment of knives along the wall, a hook and pulley system built into the ceiling which ran on a track to the next room.

They followed him, following the track where a cow carcass hung on one of the hooks, blood draining slowly onto the dirt floor, "People are fairly uneasy throughout the area. It's the new government. It always settles, but, don't let your guard down."

"We've noticed." Sheva said.

"They really roll out the red carpet for us Americans."

She turned to glare at Chris over her shoulder, not sure if he was being sarcastic or that he still had a board up his ass about being found at Massani. Sheva didn't know how Christopher Redfield of all people thought he was going to successfully hide away from anyone, let alone the B.S.A.A., "Heard anything from this guy?" Sheva showed him the photograph of Irving, taken from the cameras at the hotel.

"No." The butcher waved them off, moving across the floor, "I have weapons. Check them and get out." He folded his arms over his chest. Sheva and Chris did as they were told, gathering pistols and holsters from the silver case set on the filthy counter.

"What have you heard about Uroboros?"

Chris' head snapped up, "Mostly rumors."

"Possibility of a doomsday project." Sheva stated, "Nothing confirmed. There tends to be a lot of fear mongering from the opposition when these political shifts happen."

The butcher shook his head, "You should do what you've come to do and leave. Not worth sticking around here. I'm not sure B.O.W.s are all you've got to worry about if those rumors prove true."

She and Chris exchanged a glance, "Thanks." Sheva said, sensing the butcher wanted them out of his immediate presence, and she wouldn't mind getting away from the stinking, fly filled space.

Out the back door they went, slipping around the corner of the building, and coming back to the wide main street where the small marketplace was—Sheva paused, listening, the faraway hum of a radio, carried on a hot breeze. Quiet, deserted, emptied street. Meat left sizzling on the street vendor's grill. An empty plastic bag jounced by, lurching as the wind picked up, like a humanistic tumbleweed.

"Where'd everybody go?" Chris asked, softly.

"This is…" Sheva paused, "Concerning." _Maybe we scared them off._ They were strangers here, after all, and this was a small town.

 _"Something the matter?"_

"Not sure." Chris replied, "We'll keep you posted."

" _Stay frosty down there."_

He and Sheva moved, pistols drawn, winding through the alley ways between suddenly deserted homes and shops. She swallowed the dread building in her gut, instead trying her best to look at the positives, not to jump to any conclusions about what could or could not be going on.

"I'm guessing that's not usual." Chris said, Sheva looked where he was. Down the staircase in front of them, a goat's lifeless body. She walked to it, carefully.

The animal was decapitated, warm, "They didn't gut it. Maybe they got interrupted."

"Maybe it's dinner." Chris said.

"Yeah, but it's not gutted." Sheva said, "The meat will spoil out in this heat. It's left here." She stood up. Something rattled beyond the chain link fence lining the walking path.

"Wind."

"Yeah."

"No matter what happens. We stick together."

Sheva knew what he was getting at, "I may be a woman, Chris. But I can still hold my own."

"My old partner was a woman. I'm not worried about that."

Sheva assumed she was back in America, Canada, wherever Chris had last been working. She wondered if his old partner knew he was alive. Frankly, she'd want to know too, but they'd talk about that later. They had the whole day together, after all, granted they were able to find Irving's trail again—a feat which would be difficult now that it seemed the entire village was AWOL on them.

A man stumbled into the road in front of them, a rusted spade dragging behind him, "You alright?" Sheva asked him, keeping her hand on her weapon, "Where is everyone?"

He turned, opening his mouth and snarling, gagging up a mouthful of a tarry substance. She took a step back, and he was charging them with a strange, limping gait, shovel over his head. She shot once, straight in the knee. Though, the man didn't flinch, he kept coming, and Sheva pulled the trigger again, this time shooting him straight through the chest.

The man took another stride, then another, before his body gave out on him, crumpling to the ground, the gardening instrument clattering to the ground. Sheva holstered her weapon, carefully going to him, "Sheva." Chris said, breathlessly.

Sheva wasn't sure if he was scolding her, "Remember the Kennedy report?" She'd been doing her homework for a long time.

Chris paused, swearing, "Plagas."

"I'd bet that's why everyone was staring off into space when we got here. They've been given the orders to attack us."

"Which means we better get the hell out of here."

Sheva went to the downed man, gently nudging him with her boot several times before bending down, pressing her fingers to his cooling neck, and felt nothing.

Another distant scream, followed by another, "Headquarters." Chris said, holding the Bluetooth in his ear, "Come in. The locals are hostile. Plagas suspected. We're using lethal force. Do we have contingency plans for this?"

 _"Roger that. Air support in route."_

"No—"

But he was cut off, a woman slamming her body into the chain link fence, grabbing at it desperately as if she could somehow force her way through, spitting a mouthful of the same foreign black substance, "Definitely plagas!" Sheva shouted, "They're B.O.W.s, they're dead!" She fired, cringing as she did so. This was someone's wife, mother, family member. She tried not to think too much, instead let her training kick in.

"Who the hell did this to them?" Chris growled, "Someone knew we were coming!"

"Doesn't matter now!"

"It does matter!" Chris shot back, firing at a man moments before a machete landed in his chest.

"This way!" Sheva saw an opening and bolted, an open street where they wouldn't be cornered. _Long as nobody's got a rifle._ Though, she didn't hear gunfire. She heard Chris' footsteps and breathing a stride behind her.

A group formed in street in front of him, a man with a bottle bomb, he whipped it at them. She and Chris leapt out of the way as burning alcohol spread across the center of the street. Chris gripped her arm, "This way!"

They bolted through the open door of a liquor store. Sheva slammed the security door, it was welded from thick steel bars. Sturdy enough to buy them a minute or two. She twisted the dead bolt. The windows were barred as well, but there were a lot of people, " _Alpha team is en route to your position. ETA thirty minutes."_

"We don't have thirty minutes!" Sheva cried.

"Alpha team?" Chris asked.

"They were on the ground, nearby, in case we needed backup."

"Thanks for the heads up." He growled, "What happened to laying low?" Chris pulled a sawed off shotgun from behind the counter, checking to see that it was loaded. He slung the strap over his shoulders.

"Our cover's already blown. Now we survive." Sheva lifted a hatch in the center of the floor, glancing up to see a man struggling and rattling the security door.

"Looks like a wine cellar." She said.

"There's light!"

Chris was right. Natural light filled into the cellar from somewhere beyond view. They could be cornering themselves further but they were already cornered.

Plagas killed slowly, made the hosts unable to function or think normally, but they were still able to carry out the basics of their day to day lives. However, once the order for aggression was given, there was no going back. The mind control seized the nervous system, stopping pain response, and only giving the urge to spread the parasitic infection (or, in this case, viciously attack a perceived threat as they were ordered). Once the targets were either eliminated or infected, the hosts went dormant again, however, their severely damaged nervous systems caused a shutdown of basic body functions, the inability to eat, sleep. Hosts eventually stopped moving and died.

Plagas was a one use weapon. The scary thing being the amount of time hosts could lie dormant before the nerve wrecking aggression and urge to spread was chemically activated in the parasites. _It must have been activated in a remote location. Give everyone an implant which will release the chemical which makes them go nuts. Which meant somehow they knew we were here._

Sheva swallowed. Supposedly they couldn't maintain the aggression for long, couldn't run far, but she wasn't sure how long that actually meant. She leapt down the ladder, and heard Chris behind her, "There's a way out!" He shouted, and she let out her breath.

He went first this time, climbing the latter and forcing the hatch up with one hand. A home of some sort, they'd come through the floor beneath the kitchen table. Sheva swallowed, "They're gone too."

"And we will be soon if…" Chris trailed off, Sheva joined him beside the window, looking up to the roof of the neighboring building where the butcher dangled from his arms, hung up on tattered ropes while the crowd surrounded him, legs kicking useless out at those around him.

* * *

Thanks for reading. I'm going to try to have a lot of Jill's POV because we didn't see much of her during the game. Stay tuned : )


	5. Chapter 5

**Might as well keep writing while I have time off. I'm really enjoying writing this. I hope my readers are liking it. Y'all are so quiet, but there are a heck of a lot of you : ) Thanks again for all the hits on the story.**

 **(I'm not sure I like this, I struggle with writing action scenes so I hope it's not too janky…Though you could always leave a review at the end to let me know *nudgenudge*)**

 **Another Jill chapter will be after this, hopefully updated tonight!**

* * *

 **Chapter 5:**

Chris took a step forward, Sheva behind him. He held out her arm to stop her, "No." He said, against every instinct he had. _You can't get there. You can't. Too many people!_

" _You should all go to hell!"_ In English, the last words ripped from the butcher's throat as the crowd closed on him, swinging garden implements at his struggling form, over and over until he went still and Chris couldn't look anymore.

It was difficult to think; the heat was closing in, his heart hammering in his throat. Chris' brain was somehow both fuzzy and focused, everything moved slowly, fine details stood out—the size of the windows, silent calculations of how difficult it would be to haul one's body through the raised openings, every noise from behind and around him. The familiar thrill of battle.

He backed from the window, Sheva as well, her head turned away, shielding her eyes with her forearm. Chris eyes crossed those of the leader, a man holding a bull horn. He turned, pointing and shouting.

And then the hoard was moving. Pitchforks and shovels raised, coming toward the house. Some angry mob out of a witch hunt dramatization, "Sheva…" Chris said.

She grabbed the device in her ear, "Kirk where are you?"

 _"Coming! Hold your position!"_

"Yeah, that's not gon' happen!"

"We have to get out of town." Sheva said, and that was the best idea he'd heard in a while. They couldn't fight this, not without backup, and backup would bring a hell of a lot more attention to this situation than he was alright with bringing over. They could outrun ataxic plagas victims.

"On three." Chris said.

Sheva prepared to open the door, "One…two…three—" She flung it open, Chris drew his pistol, firing two shots into men blocking their way. He and Sheva bolted, back through the center of town, people darting at them from all angles, out of alleyways and leaping from windows. One man jumped so far from a roof that he broke his leg at their feet, crumpling to the ground.

Sheva hurdled over him, Chris rushed with her, "Shit. That's a problem." They stopped on their heels, glancing back and forth.

"Kirk! Where are you!" Sheva shouted, "The gate's blocked."

A tall, thick, rusted mess of ramshackle metal pieces welded together with an old garage door in the middle, an effective barricade for as crude as it was, there was no time to climb. No telling if their truck was where they left it on the outskirt of town.

" _Hold on, almost there!"_

"Alpha team?" Sheva cried.

 _"They've dropped off the radar. Tech issues, we're working on it."_ He didn't have time to talk, instead focused on running and where he put his feet.

 _Hurry the fuck up._ Teeth clenched, the sound of Sheva panting beside him. Here they were, running away from a group of plagas, playing pickle in the middle while they waited for their damn backup helicopter.

 _The helicopter you hadn't wanted in the first place._ For some reason the thought came in the voice of a dead woman rather than his own bolted into an abandoned shop, a woman lunged at her, and Sheva shot her through the forehead. She toppled over, a stream of black falling from her mouth, "Watch out, we don't know what the hell that is."

"Noted." She growled.

 _"This is Kirk, coming to the gate, make sure you're out of the way, we're going to blow it."_

"Just in time!" Chris shouted, to no one in particular.

Explosives going off was probably the worst idea they had all day, especially when they weren't technically supposed to be in Kijuju in the first place, but there wasn't a lot up for discussion anymore and Chris was no politician. He had bigger things to worry about than a U.N. incident, which probably was selfish, but all he could bring himself to care about was survival. His lungs hungrily gasped in the hot air, he was out of ammo somehow, but couldn't recall firing more than five or so shots. Legs trembled, but somehow still carried him as they climbed their way through the windows and back onto the hot sandy ground.

Sheva ducked down, he followed her, shielding his face with his forearm, feeling the ground shake with the near deafening sound of a rocket hitting its target.

 _"Go, go, I'll cover you!"_ Chris didn't need to be told twice, he and Sheva bolted through the smoldering remains of the gate, gunfire rattling from the helicopter behind them. And they were out the gates, rushing through town, and back on the road.

" _Chris, Sheva, are you reading?"_

"We're here." Sheva answered, breathlessly.

 _"What's your status?"_

"Unharmed, looks as though a lot of the infected are still in the village."

 _"Where's your vehicle?"_

He and Sheva looked at each other, Chris swore under his breath, "Misplaced. Back in town somewhere. We're on the opposite side of where we came in."

 _"Well, shit."_ The man on the headset said, and there were a few seconds of silence, _"Stand by."_

"Roger that." An abandoned building, probably some old stand which sold to travelers. They ducked inside, Sheva leaned against the wall, gulping from her canteen. Chris did the same, "We're going to need more water."

She nodded, but said nothing, _"Updated orders. Continue two klicks down the road, you'll come to a dry lakebed and another town. We've lost contact with Alpha team, you should be meeting up with them there if you continue that way."_

"Is there any way you can get supplies to us? Bullets, weapons, water?" Sheva asked, "We went in light."

Another few seconds of pause, " _Start heading to you objective. Two kilometers West, there'll be another town, no signs of plagas so far there, but it's very likely the locals have heard this disturbance. We'll do our best to get supplies to you. Over and out."_

Sheva exhaled, pushing herself away from the wall, "We better start walking."

And he found himself wondering: _is this what we do? What in hell are we fighting for? Some helicopter shooting down infected civilians by the dozen?_ But he walked anyway.

Chris had a job to do, and he intended on seeing it through.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading!**

 **Another Jill chapter is up next so stay tuned : ) Please review!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Jill time!**

 **EDIT! BEEFED UP THIS CHAPTER A LITTLE, CHANGED THE ARRANGEMENT OF SOME DIALOGUE. Hope that makes it a little smoother!**

 **(I'm posting this during a tornado warning cuz I'm stuck inside lol :P )**

 **Thanks as always to my readers. This is a nice long Jill centric chapter. Sorry it didn't get updated as fast as I thought it would. I hope all of you working/in school have a good day : )**

 **(Again, I feel a need to say this story is not cannon. This chapter is probably one of the first big deviations from that).**

 _ **Warning: spoken threats of sexual abuse. Flashbacks to physical/medical abuse. References to drug use.**_

* * *

 **Chapter 6:**

For how dry Kijuju was this time of year, the basement stunk of mold. Jill leaned her head back against the cool wall, catching her breath. The last few hours were a flurry of activity. Whisked away from the facility, tied up and put in a car, halfway convinced that she finally was going to be killed and buried somewhere out in the middle of nowhere, until she came here. And she supposed she was a little happy about that.

When faced with death itself, life got a bit more meaningful.

Into a basement with a few locked cells. Planks nailed together and wrapped in chicken wire. Probably designed to hold animals rather than people based on the stink of the basement and the fact that this delicate, rusted confinement was likely to be the simplest prison break during her career as a captive. Number nineteen could be the most underwhelming, and perhaps in that, the most successful.

You didn't get hired as a B&E expert without some talents, especially not in S.T.A.R.S. Jill knew to bide her time. Her throat was dry, a reminder not to exert herself too fast for too long. Water deprivation was a cheap measure to slow anyone down.

"Where are we?" As she spoke she fought the urge to cough, stifling it against her dusty arm.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Jessica. Always full of that quick wit. Considering she'd been left to be a prison guard, Jill knew she was less than happy about her current job arrangements.

"Seriously." Jill said, leaning back, "Where are we right now?" It didn't matter. Jill interacted with this woman much more than she ever wanted to, well surpassing their B.S.A.A. time spent together. Jessica paced away, her breathing was fast and she'd stop every few strides, clutching her head, "It's so fucking bright."

She wasn't sure what Jessica meant since their only source of light was the basement window, hardly a foot wide, covered partially with a board. The outside world. Jill watched the sun come up earlier through there. So close, but so far away. _Well, if you run now you could get shot. Jessica's a bit trigger happy. Maybe make this nightmare end a little sooner. She's probably hung over._

Again, Jill found herself valuing what was left of her life.

The younger woman wore a black cloak; it wrapped around her shoulders and seemed heavy. Quite impractical for the heat, but Jessica seemed agitated about everything but her clothing choices. She holstered her gun.

 _Definitely hung over, withdrawal from something._ Drugs were how Wesker got people to stay with him, he was good at getting them addicted, but Jill always assumed Jessica was more of a mercenary, an agent as Ada once had been. And in that, she'd assumed, apparently incorrectly, that the woman was clean.

 _"Well I guess I'll be in Bangkok tomorrow. Fucking on a corner and sending you money from my goddamn pussy in return for heroin." It was coming out of her mouth before she thought about it. All Jill knew was what she read, the fate of many female kidnap victims, and somehow, out of everything, the only thing she thought to say._

 _"Considering you have a broken leg." Wesker said, peering down at her, resting his hand on her thigh over her cast. She remembered him bending down, pressing, breaking her limb like it was nothing. Jill threw herself against her binds at the contact, "I don't think that pussy of yours is something anyone wants. I hear they don't like damaged goods."_

 _God, she hated him. He swabbed the vein in her arm; Jill fought wildly, "Stop. You'll hurt yourself."_

" _Fuck you!"She kept struggling. He pinned her arm, and she moaned as the needle fished around in her flesh. "You brought me here to be a prostitute? To drug me?" She was really winning an Oscar for the skill of what she was saying, but there wasn't a lot of thinking to be done when one was pinned on a madman's operating table._

 _"No, believe it or not, I have use for you which doesn't involve selling sexual intercourse to strangers, Ms. Valentine. Though, that can be arranged if it's what you wish. B.S.A.A. has plenty of enemies from what I hear. My medications are expensive, and I don't intend on wasting them on the likes of you."_

 _She didn't think, she drew back and spit, sending a spray across his glasses and face, "Burn in hell." Wesker didn't flinch. He opened the valve and walked away._

 _Jessica was a familiar face, working on something in the room, paying her little attention. Jill found herself turning to the woman, "Where am I? What is he doing to me?" As much as she tried to stay calm, her chest heaved, over and over against the constricting belt holding her on to the table. Jessica stood over her._

 _"Wouldn't you like to know?"_

 _"Jessica…please…what's happening?" Her brain ran in circles, every possibility, every and anything which could be done to her. The strange fluid connected to her I.V. line. The monsters she'd seen. They'd all started out here, poked and prodded and filled with chemicals until they turned into something else entirely. Jill's heart hammered, she struggled against the nylon cuffs, slamming her head back into the padded table._

 _Jessica's palm met her forehead, holding her down, "Stop." She released her grip, and Jill strained her neck to lift her head again._

 _Whatever the chemical was, it hurt. Caused her muscles to painfully contract, filled her veins with liquid fire, "What's happening?" She moaned, "Jessica—"_

 _"Maybe you should mind your manners."_

 _"Burn…in hell…" Another creative insult, but Jill's thinking rapidly deteriorated. She wondered if Chris was alive, if he'd made it out of the explosion at the Spencer estate, if he was somehow looking for her. Wesker assured her, when she woke with a freshly casted leg, that everyone considered her dead._

 _But Chris and Claire wouldn't give up on her, the B.S.A.A. wouldn't. It was a fragment of hope, buried in shards of pain and smothering fear, but existed nonetheless._

 _It went on for quite a while. Jessica and Wesker didn't burn, but she did, left there, the drug filling her already broken body while she struggled and screamed herself hoarse and realized exactly how much power he had over her in their current situation._

Jessica paced back and forth, twitchy even for her, still grasping a pistol, "Who are you waiting for?" Jill asked. It was better than silence, after all. She knew Jessica's behavior well enough to know when there were developments going on. Another cough stifled into her elbow, her chest felt tight. The cold wall was nice against her hot head.

Her grip tightened on the pistol handle, "I swear, Jill, I will shove this in your cunt if you don't shut up."

Jill blinked at her, "Irving?" She asked.

"What does it matter?"

Jill shrugged, clearing her throat, "Just wondering."

"Wonder about what my foot will feel like up your ass."

A few minutes of silence passed, Jill glanced around her confinement.

Jessica moved again, the door to the basement slammed open, a thin figure rushing down the stairs, "We got to go, we've got to go now."

 _So it was Irving_. Pride was hard to come by these days and Jill took what she could get. Since her guard distracted, Jill inched toward the chicken wire, leaning her shoulder into the barrier and feeling a gentle give. She gently pushed it out with her fingers, and it popped away from the board where it was stapled, "What are you talking about?"

Irving rested his hands on his keeps, "B.S.A.A! Coming into town!"

"How do you know?"

Jill leaned harder against the wire, feeling it give against her shoulder, "What does she know!?" Irving pointed at her, Jill glowered. She was still in pain from the night before, unable to shake the cough from all of the water she inhaled, left exhausted. The idea of having her head in a vat again made her shaky, panicky. Over the past year she'd gotten good at keeping the fear off her face.

 _Relax, it's Irving._ He didn't have the stomach for anything cruel and unusual.

"Nothing, apparently." Jessica said. Irving backed away, from her cell, pacing back and forth.

Irving's face buried his hands, he twisted the knob to a sink on the far end of the room, splashing water on his face. Jill licked her lips, trying to push down her thirst, trying to focus on something other than the tantalizing sound of the water running.

"B.S.A.A.'s in town?" She turned to Jessica.

"Jill do you want my fist up you?" She hollered. Her threats never deviated from the same theme.

Irving groaned, turning around, "Jessica, what's wrong with you?"

"You'll have to take me out to dinner first."

Jessica marched up to the bars, Jill didn't move. Her eyes twitched, and she rubbed them with one hand, still trying to glare at Jill. It was posturing, and they both knew, "Shut the fuck up and sit here."

Jill did as she was told, "Irving, what the hell are you doing? You got a date or something?" Jessica turned on him while he bathed in the sink, splashing water across the floor, Jill wondered if he meant to taunt her but doubted it.

"Buying you time." The man quipped back over his shoulder, "Some of the gunmen are coming, you need to pack Jill up and drive her out of town. B.S.A.A. agents are doing an investigation of the area, there was a disturbance a few kilometers from here and they're headed this way."

 _A few kilometers._ It was doable, Jill forgot her thirst. A fire ignited in her belly. No time like the present for a run. The two clowns watching her weren't the height of alertness.

"What are you doing?" Jessica demanded, "Are you coming with us? Were you followed?"

"No, I was not followed. The B.S.A.A. still thinks I'm working with them. I'm going out to dinner with a Terra Save rep tonight since I left her fundraiser early. No one suspects anything, we made a clean exit."

"Who?" Jessica demanded.

"Does it matter?"

"Yes it matters I have to answer to Excella and tell her where you are!"

Jill didn't envy that job.

"With Redfield. She's across the border and antsy. Give her a little charm to put her at ease."

 _Claire!_ Tears welled in Jill's eyes, her chest constricted as if she'd been punched. Suddenly it was difficult to breathe, her desperation to escape boarded on dangerous but she couldn't bring herself to care. Claire was nearby, Claire was still with Terra Save. If she got away, and somehow got to the B.S.A.A. operatives, she'd see Claire again. The sudden excitement made a fit of coughing rip from her throat. Irving and Jessica kept their backs turned.

Jill pressed herself into the wall, the rusted wiring gave way, wide enough, and she slipped through, dragging herself on her belly onto the cool dirt floor, wires scraping at her back. Heart pounded, she forced herself to stay quiet. _Weapon!_ Her mind screamed but there was nothing. Bare feet on the stairs were quiet; she glanced around the empty house before bolting out the front door.

The sand hot on bare feet, painful, sun baked her pale skin, hospital gown doing little to protect her from the elements but hopefully it would make her stand out in her bolt. Jill didn't think, she put her head down and ran, hearing shouts behind her.

 _Shit, shit, shit._

She heard footsteps behind her, rapidly closing, and then Jessica was on top of her. Jill rolled, frantically, scrambling to her feet again. Jessica grabbed her leg, Jill kicked her in the head but she didn't release. In a moment she was on top of Jill, snarling, pinning her.

Jessica might have been strong, much stronger than she looked, but Jill was desperate. She shoved Jessica off her with a holler. Scrambling once more, nearly back to her pace. A man stepped into her path, holding something. Jill realized what it was too late, when she was crumbling to the ground, unable to breathe or move. Tazer wires stuck from her chest, and he stood over her.

Knelt beside her, "Fuck! Is she breathing? We're under orders not to kill her!" Jessica sounded panicked now.

"She's fine. It'll wear off."

Jill struggled to breathe, Jessica's hands on her neck, her face, then her chest—plucking the barbs from her flesh.

As Jessica leaned down, getting close to her face like some kind of animal over its kill. Jill noticed her eyes in the light, half shut, bloodshot. One with a blown pupil, but the other, horizontal.

"Oh god." Jill moaned, coughing, struggling to get air into her lungs, "What did he….do…to…you?"

"Take her inside. Handcuff her to the wall in one of the cells. We're going to hog tie her before we put her in the car. Do not let her out again!" Jessica stood, and Jill was shoved down on her stomach, laying on the hot sand, unable to breathe, choking on her latest failed bid for freedom.

"So you're the escape artist, huh?"

* * *

 **For some reason I can't imagine Jessica and Jill doing anything else other than saying absolutely vile things to each other. Hope you all enjoyed, sorry again it's late. Thanks for reading! Please review!**


	7. Chapter 7

**More Chris/Jill angst in this chapter.**

 **There's a convo between Claire and Irving for the first half and for the second it's a flashback. Enjoy!**

 **P.S. If you have any requests for this story or any great Chris/Jill ideas, totally drop me a line, because I might be able to add them in. (And it would also make my day) : )**

* * *

 **Chapter 7:**

"You're late, Claire." Irving sat at the table. It was a small restaurant, in the city, but with an air of formality. Irving wore a white suit, an orange striped shirt beneath, "I ordered you a water, hope that's alright."

She grimaced, watching him fidget in the chair. She wore a tracking device thanks to Quint at the B.S.A.A. along with one of the radios which they gave to undercover agents, hidden in her ear under her hair, "Sweet of you." She said, sitting down. Trying to smile without grimacing.

There was no evidence on Irving to pick him up, Chris and Sheva lost him in Kijuju, and there was no way to know how he'd spent the hours of the day. Now the skies remained clear. Locals continuously warned her about the coming rains: to watch for the roads washing out.

"Sorry I'm late." Claire smoothed over her slacks, picking up the menu though she felt more ill than hungry. At least Sheva and Chris made it into town safe.

"Well, I'd like to know more about you."

Claire inhaled, forcing her lips to stay curled, "About me?"

"What are you hoping … to have come of all of this?"

"Excuse me?" Claire took a sip of her water and tried to relax.

"Terra Save. What's your current project?" She hadn't talked too much about her personal work during her speech, had only opened for some of the other members to talk about.

"Human rights, across the board. A lot of medical rights." Claire said, "Opting out of invasive procedures or getting a second opinion beforehand should be a right everyone has, but a lot of places that's not the case. Even in the U.S.A. adults are forced into medical procedures they don't want or need."

"Ahh." Irving seemed to shudder, "It is a problem indeed. Makes me a fair bit squeamish."

She'd gone into no details and he worked for a pharmaceutical giant, surely he knew enough about medical procedures and supplies, "Sorry." She said, and the conversation subsided. Claire leafed through the menu, settling on a bowl of soup, hoping it would be easy on her stomach. There was too much on her mind, and Irving's squeamishness wasn't helping her, "So, I imagine that's why Tricell donates to Terra Save?"

"Yes…" Irving cleared his throat. A woman came by to take their orders, "Of course. Terra Save has a lot of very good causes."

 _Very good causes, yes, Irving, you and your goddamn pimp suit. What do you know? What's going on and why are you talking to terrorists? Better yet, does Tricell know anything?_ She tried not to let her temper get the better of her, Irving might have been one of the biggest sleaze bags she'd ever had the privilege of dining with, but she couldn't blow B.S.A.A. cover.

"Yes. So, you seem nervous. Everything okay? I'm not making you uncomfortable, am I?"

"Everything's fine."

"You sure?" Claire pressed.

"I'm sure."

"Because you seem a little upset about the medical thing, still." Maybe she was being a bitch—it was possible he'd had a bad experience himself. Though, something told Claire to keep talking. She was a good talker, prided herself of being one of the best of them, and she knew she had Irving on quite an uncomfortable topic.

"Well, it's a little upsetting, _Claire."_ She didn't like her first name coming from him.

Quint was listening in, a call away, but she didn't know what kind of backup Irving had. Maybe if she played her cards right, she could get a confession, a hint, a flicker of hope, "My best friend and brother are both dead from this charade." Claire took a sip of water, Irving played with his fork but didn't actually dig into his food, "Making sure it doesn't happen to anyone else is the least I can do."

"Well, i…it must be difficult. I've heard…I'm sorry for your losses." Irving sniffled, "I hear the B.S.A.A. is in Kijuju, I'm guessing working toward a similar goal?"

Claire swallowed, that was classified, he shouldn't have known that. _"Got him, but it's not anything illegal. We're recording. Try to push on it."_ Quint at her back made her feel better.

"Why are they in Kijuju?" She went the innocent route, "I don't know what they're doing there."

Irving shrugged, "Just what I've been told."

"Can I ask by who? We're close partners with the B.S.A.A. and we've heard nothing, at least as far as I know."

 _"Smart move, Claire, I dig it."_

"Some of my coworkers, seen them around."

"What are they doing?" Irving squirmed in his seat, Claire leaned forward, putting her hands on top of his cold hands, "You know, Terra Save can help you if you're having trouble with somebody."

Irving pulled from her hands, "No…no, of course not. Tricell has me out here to tell you that we want to keep donating."

"I wasn't aware this was a sponsorship meeting, I would have brought more paperwork." Claire answered. It hadn't been meant to be. Instead it was a Tricell Rep wanting to hear more about Terra Save from the horse's mouth. A simple interaction and one of the higher ups would get back to her, hopefully while signing a check. _Guess that makes you a horse, eh?_

"Right, right. Just supposing we should talk. Be honest with each other." Claire waited for him to say more, and he did, making a hand motion of grabbing.

"What is it that you want to know?" She dipped the spoon into her soup.

 _"_ I want to know what Sheva Alomar and her supposed boyfriend are doing in Kijuju."

Claire was taken aback, "That's very specific."

"Don't be coy. You're known to be brushing shoulders with many B.S.A.A. types these days."

"What are you talking about?"

"It's my job to know who people's friends are, Claire. We'll leave it at that."

"Are you up to something, Irving? Because you've been making nice with some company a lot worse than the B.S.A.A."

Irving stood, "Well, between you and me, Claire." He tossed money on the table, "Some of the people I know are pretty nervous, and I'm trying to offer an olive branch. But like we said, this is an off the record meeting. I'm not wearing a wire, and even if you are, I'm telling you to back off."

"Are you threatening me?"

Irving wiped his nose with the back of his hand, "No. I'm asking for you to be understanding. Because some people can't say no, and it'll get a lot worse for that person if the B.S.A.A. pours across the border."

Claire heaved a deep breath, watching him leave. _That person._ The line replayed in her head, "Quint?"

 _"What happened?"_ She marched outside, to the parking lot, where she got into her rented car.

"I need you to meet me. Get some calls in, get anyone you guys don't need out of Kijuju. Try to make sure nothing has a logo on it." She wasn't technically supposed to make orders, and wasn't sure how he'd take it.

 _"To me, it sounds like he might have made a threat against Jill's life, if she still is alive, that is."_

"I agree with you."

 _It was sunny but brisk, typical for the winter, she met Chris at the shop. He waited for her, and normally she was the one waiting for him, "Sorry!" Claire shouted across the parking lot, taking off her glasses and stuffing them in her purse._

 _"No, it's okay."_

 _"Where's Jill, anyway?"_

 _"She's already in England."_

 _"Good, she won't walk into you, then."_

 _"Claire, seriously. Keep this quiet."_

 _She would, and they both knew it. There on her own request, she approved the solitaire diamond which Chris already picked out. Stared at it through the counter, and zoned out. Wondered how they'd convince Jill to have a traditional wedding, dress and all. Wondered where she'd get the money to buy her own dress—they weren't cheap._

 _"She'll say yes." Claire said._

 _Chris didn't say much, instead tucked the velvet box into his coat pocket, "Hope so."_

 _"Oh, she will. When are you going ask her? Please come back stateside so I can spy on it."_

 _Chris shrugged, "When we get back from the investigation."_

 _"Right." Claire grinned, "I'm excited."_

 _"You'll hear from her."_

 _"Yeah I will. I'd like to see it, though, so consider it."_

 _A few days passed. She knew, she knew something was wrong and never thought of it. Pushed down the dread which nestled into her stomach. Chris and Jill were fine, she didn't know the details of their missions, but Chris assured her this was merely an investigation._

 _"Are you Claire Redfield?"_

 _"Yes." She glanced back and forth, two men she didn't know at her door. Dressed in blazers, broad shouldered, important. They told her. She fell to her knees, sobbing and howling, demanding to know where her brother was. Which they didn't know. He'd taken off, turned in his report, refused to go in for counseling, and taken an indefinite leave._

 _"Is there anyone we can call for you?"_

 _"L-Leon…Kennedy." The first name she thought of, and she lived near D.C., a drivable distance from him._

 _"How? How did it happen?"_

 _"The mansion was rigged to explode. She and Wesker were trapped in the basement."_

 _"Are you sure?" Claire demanded, clutching the cup of water they'd shoved into her hands and hiccupping. Her face was raw, eyes swollen, hot tears still pouring down her cheeks. She was dead. A week after Chris had bought a damn ring, and she'd went and died. Claire found herself resenting Jill._

 _"Yes."_

 _She hung her head, "You have an honorary membership to the B.S.A.A., your brother set it up for you."_

 _"Course he did."_

 _"You're welcome to come in and talk to us, when you're feeling up to it, that is."_

 _"No. Just…call Leon."_

 _"We're trying to get a hold of him." One of them was on his phone, outside her apartment door._

 _"Here's my card." The other sat with her at the table, placed it in front of her._

 _"I said no!" Because the B.S.A.A. saw loss, a lot of loss, and Jill was one of them. She picked up her phone, dialed Chris, and found his cell disconnected. Claire chucked her phone aside, "Funeral, proceedings, body?"_

 _"No body."_

 _Claire breathed, trying to steady herself, "Then we declare her M.I.A. Until there's a body she's not dead."_

 _"She's lost in action on the books."_

 _"Exactly how?" These things made a difference, Claire couldn't think of the legal nuances right now, but she knew it was important._

 _"Ms. Redfield."_

 _"Fucking tell me, my brother bailed. What about Jill's mom?"_

 _"We've talked to her." Claire pinched the bridge of her nose, "There are no proceedings right now. She's L.I.A., presumed dead. The B.S.A.A. will provide for a memorial service if family and friends decide to go ahead."_

 _"I need to get a hold of my brother. He was there, wasn't he? What's his report?" Without a body Claire didn't feel right, she'd have to think about it. Call Julie. She had Jill's mom's cell number. That would have wait until she composed herself._

 _"Classified."_

 _"I thought you said I had B.S.A.A. access? Terra Save is an ally."_

 _They didn't say anything more._

Claire straightened her back, carefully wiped her eyes, and stepped out of the car. She entered the hotel, looking over her shoulder as she went down the hallway, "You heard him, Quint?"

"Yeah." He spun on the chair. His equipment sprawled across the desk provided with the hotel room, a stack of napkins wedged beneath the short leg, "You okay?"

"Fine. What do you think?"

"Think of what?"

"Irving! And…"

"I think he's a piece of shit but we don't really have anything on him. It was a pretty good threat we caught on tape. I don't know much about the situation, or why we're here, but I know you wouldn't do this without a good reason. Chris wouldn't have shown up here either."

She sighed, sitting down, "Get the message out?"

"H.Q.'s not too happy about hearing from me, but I told the situation as best as I could without mentioning Jill. Irving made a threat and that warrants investigation, they're buying into that somebody's got civilian hostages in Kijuju."

"Thanks Quint."

"And Claire. I worked with Jill. She'd do anything she can to stay alive."

* * *

 **Thanks for reading! Please review : ) Remember, if you like, send me a message with requests/comments. We'll be back to the action next chapter.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Sorry it's late, but reviews always make me want to write faster when I know what people like/dislike! :) (again! I'm open to requests on this!)**

 **I've made some changes to the Allyson situation so I hope you all like it.**

 **Here it is. Back to Sheva and Chris. Hope you all enjoy it!**

* * *

 **Chapter 8:**

"It's getting late." Sheva said, holding up her hand to the sun, closing one eye and measuring the amount of times her hand fit horizontally between the glowing red ball and horizon, "About an hour and a half until sunset."

H.Q. lost contact with alpha team, and that was their next priority: locating them. Chris wondered where they'd gone, _"There's been a threat made against local civilians. We're backing off the radio. Keep your heads down over there, you two. You guys are going to be on your own until you locate alpha team."_

"So we're out here alone?" Sheva asked.

 _"Affirmative. Continue to your destination."_

"I don't know if that's a good idea if there are threats being made."

"I second Sheva." Chris said, "It sounds like a suicide run." _Especially if a group of ground soldiers went missing._

 _"Your orders stand. We can't risk stirring up any more trouble in Kijuju. You need to locate Irving and Alpha team."_

They glanced at each other, until finally Sheva answered, "Understood."

No one in town was keen on talking: either paid off or threatened, and it was hard to tell which. Nothing strange. Nothing suspicious. All but a lost cause, waiting for an update from H.Q. or they sniffed something out themselves. Sheva sighed, trying once more, asking in mother tongue if they'd seen any armed men come through, or anything out of the ordinary.

"She says there was some activity, a woman went running out that door and armed men took her back in." Sheva pointed to one of the nearby buildings.

Chris' eyes widened, "What did she look like?"

"Says she can't say, but she's worried about her." Sheva replied, "I have a feeling people here have been threatened. But we might as well take a look while we're here."

Chris leaned his shoulder to the door, listening. She watched him, getting herself into position. He shrugged his shoulders and raised his hand, as if going to knock. She shook her head, and he nodded in understanding.

Instead he slammed his shoulder into the metal barring, this time breaking through the thin latch. Sheva clenched her teeth and waited, back pressed to the wall, following behind Chris once he was through and safe. Though, the kitchen was empty. Gutted, wires partially removed from the walls. The sink long since rusted through, probably to the point of complete dysfunction. Air thick with humidity and dust. A few paper cups of partially drank coffee from one of the local stands set on the surface. _Guess that is current activity._

Sheva made motion to be quiet, pointing to the steps heading down behind the table. They crept down the stairs, finding an empty basement.

Several wired compartments were set up, built on wooden frames which reached floor to ceiling with rusted padlocked doors, "Storage." Sheva stated, "Looks like it's mostly cleared out."

"It's still wet." Chris pointed to the floor on the far side of the room, another sink, still repulsively corroded but perhaps a little more functional, "Someone's been here."

Though, Sheva saw something else. A pair of handcuffs dangling from the wall in one of the cells. The door was left open, whereas the others remained sealed. Empty and bedded with straw. She entered the open area, and nudged the cuffs with the barrel of her pistol. Chris joined at her side, "Someone was kept down here. These aren't rusted, they're shiny and new. Out of place compared to everything else. But, they're gone now. Whoever they were…" Sheva trailed off.

 _"Help! Somebody help me!"_

"You hear that?"

Chris already was bolting up the stairs, _"Help!"_

Sheva ducked around the side of the house, Chris a stride ahead of her. A woman burst from a balcony door, bleached blonde, wearing pumps and black lace lingerie. She waved, and slumped over the railing.

They exchanged glances, before rushing up the stairs, "secure the apartment, I've got her." Chris said, holstering his gun, gingerly reaching for the woman. The house was empty, blood splattered across the floor and tracked out the door, apparently from the woman. The only other door was the fire escape out back, flung open, which Sheva guessed was where her attacker fled. She looked out, seeing nothing aside from the occasional passerby on the street.

For a moment she felt a pang of guilt. How lucky she'd been to have parents who'd gotten work at well paying jobs, gotten them away from towns like this, from the constant instability and lack of law which ruled the country. The people had to go on living, and take it in stride. How could they possibly pick out one strange event from the next? They did what they could to keep their families alive and safe.

An empty bedroom and bathroom, no other hiding places that Sheva could find. She returned to Chris, who had gotten the woman back into the house where she now lay on the floor.

 _"We need a medic out here, injured civilian."_ Chris stated into the radio, voice echoing in Sheva's ear.

With every breath her lungs pulled, the woman made a whistling noise, gripping uselessly at multiple stab wounds through her torso. "Hang in there." Sheva said, taking her hand, "What's your name? Open your eyes." Chris used the blanket from the couch, pressing it onto her bloody body.

"Ally…Allyson…" She gasped.

"Okay, Allyson, I need you to look at me."

She did, and Sheva nearly jumped backward. Chris' pressure on her slackened. Two vertical pupils on pale blue eyes stared back at Sheva, "He…said…I was…one….Had to….work…." Allyson coughed, blood speckling her lips. Sheva hoped to hell she wasn't contagious, but it was a little late at this point. She seemed impossibly human, eyes welling with tears, brows knitting together in concern as she stared up at the two.

"Who said?" Chris asked, "What are you doing here?"

"He…took me….saved…me….said….I…would live…." Sheva looked across her, Allyson's neck was swollen, as well as under her arms, a large swollen lump on her right breast. _She's been screwed up pretty bad, stabbings aside._

"Who?" Chris demanded, "Try to focus! Is there anyone else?"

Tears fell down Allyson's face, "He…saved me….why?"

"Shhh." Sheva said, "It's okay. Bad things happen sometimes."

Allyson shut her eyes and fell limp. Sheva felt her neck, looking for a pulse, feeling the massive lymph tumors beneath her soft skin. Chris pulled back, "H.Q….We're going to need a body picked up. It's hot. Class A female."

 _"We'll get a cleanup team."_

Chris sighed, "What the hell?"

"A prostitute?" Sheva asked, "Maybe somebody took her off the street, cleaned her up, offered her something better—"

"Then threw her back." Chris grimaced as he spoke.

"Why? Why do this to her?" Sheva looked around, finally finding a leather purse. Designer. She opened the bag and dug through, finding various feminine products, and nothing of use.

"Who knows with these people." Chris paced back and forth.

"I bet Allyson was kept in that basement." Sheva said, "Probably the one who ran out."

"Maybe."

"Any word on Alpha Team? We have mid twenties female casualty here, her attacker got away, but we're at a dead end."

" _She's a class A B.O.W.?"_ 'Class A' was someone with genetic alterations which still retained human appearance and consciousness. This was the first Sheva had seen. As far as she knew there'd only been one confirmed Class A in the past, and he was now dead. Coming across another was unnerving to say the least.

A long pause, and Sheva wondered if the radio call went through, " _Mission Update: Alpha team has been compromised, but a definite reason to suspect Richardo Irving. An unknown female is with him, and they are headed across the boarder. We believe he's heading toward the mines, apparently he does the accounting there are well."_

"What do you mean compromised?"

Another pause, " _Alpha team is dead."_

"What happened to them?"

 _"Poisoned, it looks like. We're not sure by what."_

"How does that happen?" Chris asked. Sheva wondered as well, but that was something they'd probably get on a report on a later date.

"What?! You still want us to handle this guy alone?" Sheva cried, feeling the dryness of her throat, "We are low on supplies, and in need of a drop. Repeat: we need water and bullets."

She and Chris exchanged glances. Her partner looked as tired as she felt. His tanned face tinged red from heat, sweat dripping down his forehead, body covered in the red dusty soil. She felt the dirt clinging to her own face, and the notably light weight of a nearly empty canteen.

 _"That's a positive. Supplies are en route to you. But you have to go after Irving. You've got a head start on everyone else."_

"There is something bigger than we thought going on here, we found a woman who showed intense signs of genetic alteration. _Class A!_ We need backup." Chris sounded tired, just as she felt.

 _"Your orders stand."_

Another glance between the two of them, "We're on it." He answered.

Sheva took a final look at Allyson's form, grabbing the other blanket off the couch, and spreading it over her. She halfway wondered if Allyson would rise up again, regenerate her body and go about her way.

 _No, she's dead. She'll stay dead._ Maybe they should have put a bullet through her head just to be sure, but Sheva found that too cruel, even after death. The clean up team would come and find nothing but the dead body of a tortured woman.

With the final thought she turned away, climbing down the stairs on tired legs, ready to take on their next task.

* * *

So next chapter, we will find Irving! Wonder how Chris will react to seeing a picture of Jill. Please review!


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9:**

It was a long walk, but in exhaustion time seemed to go missing. Before Chris knew it, they stood before a mining complex. A blood red sun setting against dark purple sky. Although he didn't know much about mining, the operation was quite a bit smaller than he imagined. A few rusty buildings, some men driving worn equipment, paying little attention to newcomers. A blessing in itself. Through the wide windows of the top floor, Chris' eyes caught the unmistakable silhouette of Irving pacing back and forth.

 _Back from dinner with Claire, apparently. Snorted half a kilo while you were at it._

He wished there was a way to get in touch with his sister, but that was out of the question for a moment. She was usually good at working answers out of people—maybe she'd learned something from Irving. Though, there was little information on that front. Apparently the B.S.A.A. and Terra Save weren't communicating.

The whole current chain of command was fuzzy at best, closer to a cluster fuck in reality. He'd been in the business long enough to know when there was no clear idea of what they were doing or decent leads to follow. Unfortunately the two of them were the ones flung into the epicenter. Now wasn't the time to think of it. _You know why you're here. That's all that matters._

Sheva tore open the door, Chris moved in, "Freeze!" He shouted.

Irving, who'd been bent over the desk, nearly fell over his chair, "Oh shit!" He cried, jumping backward and shoving something into his pocket.

"Don't move!" Chris yelled, "Drop it!"

"Or…" He laughed, holding a pistol with the slide open and no clip in the base, "How about you, drop yours!" He pointed it at each of them, neither waivered. He laughed like a maniac.

"You lying piece of shit. Get on the ground!" _Where is she?_ He wanted to ask, wanted to turn Irving into a bloody pulp with his bare fists until he told where Jill was. Though, there was no telling the man was any acquaintance of Wesker. In all likelihood, he had no idea who Jill was.

"That's harsh. I thought we were friends, Sheva?"

"This isn't negotiation. You're associated with terrorists. You're under arrest." Sheva said, stepping toward him. He looked desperate. Red rimmed eyes darting between them, and then to the window. Chris wondered if he'd jump out— people he at one point considered psychologically healthy had preformed far crazier stunts.

"Terrorists?" He cackled, "Please! I'm a business man with standards!"

Chris changed his angle, "Yes, you're a business man and supposedly a damn good one. This isn't worth dying over. Come quietly and we might be able to work something out."

A crash and the room was filling with smoke, white hissing plumes of it. Sheva begun choking seconds before he did.

 _Tear gas. Shit._ He backed up, eyes watering, a crash of shattering glass behind him. A woman cloaked in a black hood and plastic mask sprang through the opening, landing hard on the scrap wood floor. How had she possibly gotten up to the window?

"Let's go!" She grabbed a gagging Irving by the back of the shirt. Through watery eyes Chris raised his pistol. One shot was all he had, but her attention remained directed at Irving.

He took the shot. The bullet hit its mark. She squealed, gripping her arm and whirling around.

The woman let go of Irving for a moment. She turned on them, Chris held his breath. Blood dripped onto the ground, but she wasn't reacting as she should. In fact: seemed to snarl with each breath. _Another class A?_ If so, they were hopelessly outgunned. Chris stayed at attention. She seemed to weigh her options. The smoke closed in, he went to shout at her to put her hands up, but instead of words a fit of coughing ripped from his throat.

She grabbed Irving and dragged him out the window. Sheva rushed after them and Chris followed behind, half blind and unable to breathe properly. All of a sudden he was on his knees, hacking up his lungs. Tires spun in the distance, "He…left…something…." Sheva rasped, opening the door as to allow the air to clear.

Chris was swearing again, forcing himself to pull it together and get to his feet, "What …are they doing?"

She moved to the table, joining Chris who'd gotten his hands on the smart phone that Irving had left behind. He stared at it, as if it was telling him some terrible, dirty secret, "You alright?" Sheva asked.

He shook his head, exhaling, "Yeah. Let's go."

"Yes, you're alright?"

"Yes. Fine. It looks like he was messing around in oil fields somewhere. Where is that?"

"Out in the marshlands." Sheva exhaled, looking at the maps left on the table, "Far from here." There were circles drawn on complex topical maps, something written about scouting flight plans. None of it made sense without context. He heard her radioing to H.Q., who still assured them backup was on the way. This time, there was no way he and Sheva could follow on foot. Whatever vehicle Irving and the woman got away in moved far too quickly, and without a destination, they'd spend hours walking on unforgiving terrain. _A death wish at night. Especially if there're more infected._

 _"Hold your position. Backup's on its way."_

"Got it." Sheva said, and Chris was glad she was on it, busy figuring out the phone Irving left behind. He leafed through a few text messages with little meaning to him, heart thumping. The app for pictures glared at him, and Chris swallowed. He was thirsty, even more so now. Throat dry and burning from the chemicals inhaled.

There were a lot, but as he scrolled down, his heart beat harder, and finally felt as if it would stop. Sheva said something but he couldn't hear her. His ears rang as if he'd spent the previous hours in the front row of a concert.

Familiar eyes stared somewhere beyond the camera, up from underneath lids of a hung head. Her thin body wrapped in a straight jacket and buckled to a chair. He saw her fear, felt it, his own clawing at him.

 _Jill. Oh God, Jill._ Pale blue eyes. Her eyes, set in front of some kind of lab. Chris couldn't breathe.

She _had_ survived.

"GET DOWN!" Sheva screamed , and over the ringing in his ears, gunshots split through the air. Glowing holes appearing through the thin, sheet metal walls of the watch tower.

Somehow he found his bearings, forcing down the shock and helping Sheva overturn the heavy desk, "We're under fire!" Chris shouted into the radio.

" _On our way!"_ A voice he didn't recognize, " _Combat equipped. Thirty seconds. Keep your heads down. Sheva, we're going to get the party started down there."_

"Thank God! Good to hear your voice, Josh."

Chris forced himself to breathe, pressing himself as flat to the floor as his rib cage allowed.

 _Damn it, Jill!_

* * *

 **Thanks for reading! We'll be back to Jill in the next chapter, so this is a bit short. Not quite sure how I feel about this one. Please review!**


	10. Chapter 10

Jill chapter! I guess I'll clear something up: Jill's only been 'dead' a little over a year in this universe **.**

 **EDITED: fixed some grammar and continuity issues. Sorry if they bugged anyone ^^'**

 _ **Warning:**_ **Flashbacks and current medical abuse and torture. Non graphic rape. Verbal abuse. This is a dark chapter, and most Jill ones will be for some time. The last few paragraphs of the third italicized section are the worst, in case you want to skip it. This fic is M rated mostly for this chapter.**

Though, back to present time, Irving gets to earn his keep a bit at the end. My goal was to try and make this chapter as tasteful as possible while still getting the points across.

As always, thanks to all my readers and followers! : )

* * *

 **Chapter 10:**

She was back in her cell. It had been a long day. Nearly suffocating from heat while bound in a trunk didn't do much for anyone's health, she mused, rubbing her wrists. Luckily they hadn't pounded on her—under orders from Wesker not to have her injured beyond immediate repair. That was typical for her guards, and she used it to her advantage more than once before.

Jessica and Excella were another story, but they weren't around most of the time, and that was that.

Jill hung her head, coughing, trying to stop but unable. Her coughs got deeper, sending an ache through her chest.

 _Breathe. Hold yourself together and breathe._ The telltale ache in her body from illness setting in, intermiently burning hot and shivering cold—too familiar for the past months. Years? Jill wasn't sure. _Feels like years, which probably means months. Maybe two years._ It was all an estimation, she'd been incoherent for long periods of time when she first arrived, beyond that, she spent most days far underground, florescent lights in the cell block shone constantly, there was no way to tell day and night.

Wesker wouldn't tell her no matter how she much she asked.

She wondered if it was infection, and placed her hand onto her chest, atop of the metal plate nearly flush with her skin. Jill forced herself to breathe, tried to force away the memories which flooded her, but they came back.

* * *

 _She churned, back and forth, trying desperately to keep herself calm. It hurt, how it hurt, "Stop." Wesker said, calmly. Sweat rolled down Jill's forehead. Though, she held herself still, letting his cold hands come to her shoulders._

" _Please." Her skin was swollen, she had no desire to look but did anyway. Bruised, bright red, and swollen angry. Wires running deep beneath her flesh ,"It hurts." Jill swore she could feel the wires moving, twitching against her rib cage. Eyes watered, and she bit it back as best as she could._

" _It hurts now?"_

" _Yes." She groaned. The heart monitor raced._

" _Your sedation is wearing off and it was just placed. A bit of discomfort is normal after surgery, Ms. Valentine." Her own screams drowned out only by the sound of a drill fresh in her mind. Jill buried it as best as she could. She'd passed out at one point, maybe twice, before Wesker ordered the drugs given to her._

" _Why? Why are you doing this?"_

 _Torture. Sadistic. Simple. She didn't know what answers she needed, but asked anyway._

" _We have a history, Ms. Valentine. Couldn't bring myself to let you die down there. You're far too talented."_

" _What is this?"_

" _We'll worry about that later." He stroked over her hair with the back of his hand, and uncharacteristically gentle, rested it on her forehead. Wesker chuckled, pinching her cheek, deliberately trying to get a reaction from her, "Nothing to say?" He pressed, "Give her some morphine. She'll need to rest."_

" _You heard him!" That was Excella, "Move! What are we paying you for!?"_

 _They rushed._

 _Jill didn't reply—she'd already screamed every vile insult she could come up with at least twelve times. And then she'd just screamed. Weak, broken. Now she shut her eyes and hoped he'd go away._

 _But it did heal._

 _Once a day, sometimes twice, she was dragged from her cell. The device was scrubbed with an antibiotic solution, and she was given pills to swallow. Her swelling went down, and pale flesh returned to normal, bruises slowly fading._

 _For a while she was afraid to move—feeling as though she'd tear the skin over her sternum. Eventually she got used to it._

 _With every day, Jill got stronger. Her once injured leg stopped aching._

 _She walked laps in her cell, working away the limp which once came from atrophied muscles._

 _Watched the swelling on her chest go down._

 _And started to plan._

* * *

Jill decided she had nothing more to lose: her dignity was long gone and she was unable to get a clear look with her gown. She pulled the ribbons in the back open, and yanked it partially down. Her skin healed, and though messing with the plate hadn't gone well before, she couldn't help it.

It's exact purpose, Jill didn't know, but had formulated a decent idea. Sometimes Wesker would attach a red glass looking device, a computer of some sort. The first time it had shorted out so painfully that he'd had to pull it off her. It was also the first and only time she'd seen him get anxious when things hadn't gone as planned—using a screwdriver, frantically freeing the red computer unit from the console permanently attached to her body. Perhaps the first time she truly believed he intended to keep her alive for the foreseeable future (granted, that was before Chris died).

* * *

" _Why won't you let me die instead of torturing me?" She asked, point blank. Wesker stared at her, and he smiled his white teeth._

" _It can be arranged." The man replied, "Though, it's all about timing, dear heart."_

" _Uh-huh." Jill sat on her cot. Normally Wesker didn't come to see her at night (or what she assumed was night), but that was another story in itself. The fact of the matter was that she had to run. There was no other choice, just had to take her time. After all, she was a captive audience for his musings. Besides, Chris was alive somewhere, he might even be looking for her._

 _She had to get outside, make some noise. It was unlikely she'd get away, but hopefully she could cause enough disturbance to call attention to herself._

 _Eventually he grew bored of her one worded responses and left. Jill pulled the paper clip out from between her cheek and gum._

 _As always, they neglected to lock the door heading out of her cellblock, which meant she only had to get out of her own cell._

 _Jill made her way forward, coming to the old door. They used iron keys. Very old fashioned, and her saving grace. Using her teeth and fingers to properly bend the wire. The lock gave, and she was out. Bright lights overhead. It was surreal—in this place she'd been dozens of times but never on her own accord._

 _She trotted down the hallway, pausing, trying her best to look out the cell block. Wearing a damn hospital gown but it was all she had, and she'd figure out something on the way. Jill pushed through the door, coming to another hallway. Empty—the medical wing. She'd been here too much, but in that knew her way around._

 _At the end of the hall there was a staircase. It was better than getting trapped on the elevator. She poked her head into one of the rooms, looking for something to wear. Another hospital gown sitting on the counter which she wrapped around her back._

 _Up the stairs. Jill heard voices above her and then ducked into the nearest door. More hallways, and seemingly deserted again._

* * *

Jill swallowed heavily and dragged her fingernail over the plate. It was some sort of mind control, or at least supposed to be. It didn't work for shit, so she supposed it didn't really matter, but everything she did to damage the device set Wesker back. He had to wait for her chest to heal again before he could try to make the plug in console work, which usually did little more than sit on her flesh and administer drugs which made her feel woozy, more drunk than useful, and then he'd take it off and leave again.

At worst it caused extreme, debilitating pain, which again made her completely useless to any task. Jill didn't understand the point—he had staff. What could she possibly do for him? Pull a Manchurian Candidate? Brainwashing existed, but it seemed apparent he wanted to retain her memories and personality. He wanted her to see the damage she caused, acknowledge it.

Though, it had only worked on a small scale so far.

When she agreed to perform various humiliating and menial tasks in return for an end to the pain, to stop the device from sending electric currents and his favorite cocktail of nerve inflaming drugs through her body.

Though, the memories budding up were older. Her first foiled escape, when the bad things happened, before she had the foggiest idea about what the hardware attached to her body was capable of.

Jill clawed around the metal, hissing through her teeth, and eventually giving up before breaking her skin.

She fixed her gown.

No matter how she willed, her brain wasn't going to stop. Once the memory started it came through like a flood gate being opened—vivid and powerful. Rushing like white capped water.

* * *

 _High off of the freedom, she was being loud—making mistakes. Feet were much too noisy on the stairs, and she hadn't even thought about cameras. Her chest started to hurt._

 _Red lights flashed down the hallway. Voices in a language she didn't know, but recognized as the local tongue, rang through the intercom. Jill swallowed heavily. Footsteps distant, around the corner but gaining on her. Somewhere to hide couldn't be far._

 _Staying calm was the next question but she had training specifically for that purpose. Jill found herself pressed into a supply closet, behind a rack of medications which she neither understood nor wanted to._

 _Her heart beat in her ribcage, she swore she could feel it reverberating through the plate. Jill rubbed her sternum, trying to ease the ache, watching the shadows of two men pass the door to the closet. A third poked his head inside._

 _She shut her eyes._

 _The door closed again._

 _Jill knew she had to move._

 _Another quick search for real clothes, turning up nothing. No time to keep looking._

 _Jill made it up another two flights of stairs and through the next door before seeing a man at the end of the hallway. Sport coat, black glasses._

 _In a heartbeat he was inches from her face. She swung her fist, landing a hit in his nose, feeling a give beneath her hand. Wesker released, and she bolted the opposite direction._

 _Another heartbeat, and the man was in front of her, towering over her, somehow hooking his boot around her ankle as she tried to turn and sending her crashing to the tile floor. He chuckled, "Officer Valentine. I don't believe I've ever seen you in such a state."_

 _"Fucker!" She growled, rage boiling, every hand he'd raised against her, the pain he'd put her through both mental and physical. Going home was the only thing that mattered. Jill swung again, from her vantage point having a clear shot at his crotch._

 _Super human or not, that still hurt. In his slacks he wasn't wearing adequate combat protection. The telltale grunt escaping his lips, proud shoulders curling down. Jill took the opportunity._

 _She got further, but he caught her._

 _Wesker spat, "If you wanted it, Ms. Valentine, all you had to do was ask." His nose twitched, Jill watched the skin where she hit turn from red to peach. Fiery eyes glowed from behind dark glasses._

 _"No!"_

 _He gripped a fistful of her hair, took her to the elevator, and swiped a keycard. Jill got the point._

 _"No, Wesker!"_

 _The doors closed, and the elevator begun to descend, now locked to anyone else trying to get on._

 _"Quiet." He snarled. His accent came out as it did when he was angry. She never knew where he'd grown up; they'd talked about it in S.T.A.R.S., between each other. When finally asked Wesker's answer was that he moved a lot but never offered details._

 _The doors opened once more, he dragged her through and then to another set for which he used a different key card. His private quarters. She uselessly thrashed, "Wesker, no, please."_

 _A zipper and the rumple of fabric pushed down. Jill knew what was coming and she forced her brain to stop. Focused on everything else besides the situation at hand._

 _She stared at his dark oak desk, memorized every detail. The fancy silver pens perfectly lined up and glowing tablet resting on the surface. Vintage green shaded lamp—similar to the one in the S.T.A.R.S. office._

 _His Listerine stinking mouth on her chin, hot breath spreading across her face, "If only we could show Chris what fun we're having."_

* * *

Jill brushed the tears off her face and leaned her head back. It was the past, and the past was best left there.

She missed Chris, she missed Claire—so close but so far away. Chris was dead. She pressed her hands into her face and tried her best to stop the tears. The slot in her door creaked, a single steaming cup on a tray, "Jill?"

"Irving." She said, her voice sounded strained. Jill maintained her distance.

"You look like shit. I brought you tea."

 _Shove it. Eff-yourself. Leave me alone._ As she thought of it, Jill realized she was too tired to fight, and a warm drink sounded _wonderful,_ "That's….Kind of you."

He cleared his throat and sniffled. She crawled off her cot and approached the door, eyeing the plastic mug, "It's not poisoned, I promise."

"Why?"

"An olive branch."

She didn't move. Irving sighed, reaching through the slot and taking it back. He sipped it, and then offered once more. Jill accepted. Irving drank from his own cup. She enjoyed the warmth on her hands, feeling a different, less pleasant, warmth in her eyes and throat. She wiped her tears again with the back of her hand.

It was alright. It was Irving, not Jessica, not Excella.

Tonight the tears weren't going to stop. Because Chris was dead and Claire was somehow in Africa and she'd had a long day and let herself think about too many things she didn't want to remember.

Irving and Jill didn't speak. Eventually he took the cup back from her, stood, and walked away. As he did, she finally found the voice to thank him.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading. Long, long chapter, but poor Jill deserves her story told. This one was hard for me, I like the end result but hope it's not too confusing. I want to do more chapters about Jill and her experiences of the various dumb tasks they make her do when working with the "chest device", I'm trying to make it as chronological as possible with Jill's captivity flashbacks. Please let me know what you think!**


	11. Chapter 11

**Thanks again to all my readers and reviewers and followers! Sorry this update took me longer than normal (blaming work for that one! :P ) I'm having a great time writing so I hope you're all enjoying!**

 **Sorry there isn't a ton of action in this chapter. I decided to focus on the angst instead, so the action happened behind the scenes. Also, I felt the need to have a happy!valenfield flashback after the previous chapter : )**

* * *

 **Chapter 11:**

Josh Stone was a hell of a leader. He and Sheva would have been screwed if Delta Team hadn't come around when they did.

Personally, Chris' resume consisted of shooting at B.O.W.s much more often than anything, or _anyone,_ else. Sure, he'd been in his fair share of shootouts, scientists or underpaid security guards grabbing for weapons and sending down a spray of bullets before hoping released organic weapons would finish the messy job for them. That was different than a militia of black market mercenaries intent on terminating their targets.

He was extremely thankful Josh's group came when they did.

The mercenaries hadn't stood a chance, and within minutes, Josh's disciplined Delta Team sent the remains of the rag-tag team running for the hills, "You had some moves back there." Sheva and Chris lounged on the back of one of the humvees, heading toward the temporary base camp. Apparently Claire and a few other Terra Save reps were already there and promised beds and dinner (he wasn't hungry, but the offer was nice nonetheless).

"It seems…very uneasy here." Chris noted a group of people on the street, pulling heavy carts filled with personal items and plastic water jugs. Children walking behind their parents, eyeing the passing vehicles with a mix of intrigue and distrust.

"Instability." Sheva said again, "They're fleeing."

"Miners and their families?" Chris wondered aloud.

"We have to do things differently in these parts. People are isolated in these rural areas, it's a hot bed for terrorists. Escalated considerably over the past few weeks. This land has diamonds, petroleum, black market connections for anything you could want. Dozens upon dozens of wealthy corporations are setting up shop without regulation. B.S.A.A. is needed here." He sat shotgun to the man driving, "We're ground soldiers. A lot of us transferred after our service was finished in the military."

"Kijuju?"

Josh shook his head, "South African Army. Did a lot of work with the UN, so the B.S.A.A. was the next logical step." He shrugged, "We're from different countries, but the B.S.A.A. makes boarders matter a little less, especially with uroboros."

"What exactly is it?" Sheva asked, she sat comfortably, partially leaned over the man in the back seat's shoulder. Apparently she trained with delta team regularly, and they seemed fairly close, much as he and the S.T.A.R.S. had been, "We've heard murmurs all day."

Chris wondered if he should show the picture to anyone but opted against it, keeping his hand on top of the snapped pocket where he placed the recovered cell.

"Bad news." The man whose shoulder Sheva leaned over said, his name was Govender, "'New World Order', the sort of shit the conspiracy nuts like to talk about."

Johnson, the American driver of the humvee, spoke up next, "Can't imagine they could get organized enough to pull off something like that."

"Hard to believe. Though, this level of unrest in itself is an oddity."

"Is it a virus, then?" Sheva asked, "We encountered a Class A earlier today."

"Yes. Team went in after it, we're still waiting on confirmation."

Chris remembered the woman, her eyes and tumor ridden body, "She had to be close to a definite."

"Not until the lab tells us. They won't believe it until they have a solid look at her."

The vehicle jounced along the dirt road. A herd of impala galloped distantly, throwing up dry clouds of dirt which caught the last orange glow from the setting sun. Africa. Of all places, here he was in Africa. Spent time on a game preserve nonetheless. Chris had been up close and personal with foreign animals which were merely a distant dream for people in the states, and he struggled to notice them. The land was alive, and even the red soil, so much different from home, but comforting in its own right. Warm and sandy under his boots after a long day's work. Sheva spoke again before he thought to, "It's frustrating, waiting for the lab."

Soon, he lost focus on their conversation. Chris shut his tired eyes, feeling the lurches of the truck on the dirt road.

* * *

 _The boat lurched as they pushed off from the shore of the pond. Probably completely unnecessary to have a boat, but the point was for Jill to have the full fishing experience. After all, she never fished before. Gentle waves from a gentle wind. Jill sat at the front, wearing a black sweat shirt, a steaming thermos in her hands. She carefully set it down, "Fishing." She said, "Alright, where do we find them?"_

 _They'd bought their daytime licenses and barrowed the row boat from a mutual friend who apparently hadn't used it in several years. He'd taken Jessica fishing, after all, and it seemed much more fitting to have Jill go. Especially in light of the Queen Zenobia incident, "They're right beneath us. Probably watching."_

 _She sat, shoulders rolled back, her baseball hat shielding her face from the autumn sun, "Just stick it on? The bait?"_

 _"Yep." He said, and she put one of the frozen mealworms on the hook, "We're going to row over to the grass, fish like the grass."_

 _And it was out of sight of anyone on shore. No one from B.S.A.A. was around the park (probably), but they'd gotten into the habit of hiding anyway. Besides, most fish were in the grasses, away from the common fishing spots and hidden from predators, "I'm guessing we should be quiet too, sneak up on them."_

 _Chris eased the paddle in and out of the water, "They say the fish can hear our voices, I'm not totally sure of that, though."_

 _"Guess we should listen to the scientists." Jill grinned, and that made him grin too. Hell, they could probably sit in the office for fourteen hours straight and enjoy each other's company. That was the nice thing about being friends for so long. Comfortable in the silence of the moment, he enjoyed the feeling of the boat gliding through the water._

 _She moved, her strong flexible back turning so she could face forward and straighten herself, carefully setting the rods down as to grasp the other paddle. They pressed their boat into the browning cattails, and Jill gripped the edges, balancing herself, "You alright?"_

 _"Yeah, let me know before you hit the breaks next time."_

 _She handed him one of the rods and casted as he'd taught her on shore._

 _Fishing proved less than successful, but they made due, talking quietly while their boat sat on the water. Colorful bobbers lulling in the current. Chris leaned forward, kissing Jill on the mouth. She wrapped her arms around his neck, "I'm sad there aren't any fish." Her forehead rested against his, his own hands on her waist. She turned to reel in her line and set it down on the floor of the boat. Chris followed her lead._

 _"I'm sorry they're not biting."_

 _Jill pecked him on the lips, "Want to go out for fish fry?"_

 _"You hungry?"_

 _"They're making me hungry."_

 _"Heh. Making you hungry with all of their inaction?"_

 _"Sure and that I'm thinking about fish. I always assumed you'd eat fish after fishing. You know—respectful."_

 _They shifted in the boat, it rocked. He slowly lay Jill back, his hand wrapped around the back of her head. She steadied herself with his shoulders, "Respectful? Eating their brethren?"_

 _Jill laughed, "I meant 'traditional'. Wrong word. But they are tasty little bastards."_

 _Chris sighed, "Should we go?"_

 _"I'm thinking we could get takeout."_

 _"Where around here has it this time of year?"_

 _"Moonlight Bar has a good fish fry, I've got their number. Then we can eat it back at my place…watch some videos of fishing online…" She shifted beneath him, leaning up on her elbows, "But if you want to stay here a while longer, that's fine. We can fish a while longer."_

 _He thought about it: the lack of action they'd seen at the pond. He'd take her somewhere else one of these days, maybe during the early summer when the weather warmed again. There was plenty of time for fishing, that was the beauty of it: the fish never went away, simply were more active on some days. A cool breeze blew across the water, warm food sounded good, "I think I like your idea." Chris pushed himself back up._

* * *

The building was massive—modern architecture with lots of glass and nice, manicured gardens. Owned by Tricell. After the incident with Irving, the corporation figured putting the B.S.A.A. up for the night was the least they could do. The warm showers, food and rooms with made beds were a little too good for any of them to turn down, let alone hold a grudge for long. Chris just hoped the rest of Tricell had a cleaner track record than Irving did.

He was back to introducing himself as 'Joey'. Sheva asked him twice underhandedly what his concern was, and twice he'd shrugged her off. Now she seemed distracted talking to Delta Team, gathered around the buffet of chicken and rice cafeteria workers had set out for them.

He was showered, changed, and about ready to go insane with restless energy. H.Q. silent aside from orders about awaiting more information in the morning. Chris knew he couldn't wait that long. For him, it was merely a matter of finding the opportunity to leave. He ducked down the hallway, heading for the side entrances to the medical research center where they'd come in at the beginning of the evening.

"Excuse me, ma'am? Is there a Claire Redfield here?"

The receptionist stared up at him from behind her glasses, "This is not usually a hotel and if I recall most of you didn't give names. Hold on a second." Chris knew. Technically they were staying in dorm rooms where research interns did.

"She's Terra Save, not B.S.A.A., if that helps."

She didn't say anything, and he took it as a message to back off. Potted plants sat around the lobby, old magazines sat on tables and padded chairs. Typical of any medical center. With the immensity and newness of the facility, he wondered where the income came from.

"Ah-ha. Do you want me to call her room, sir?"

"Yeah, if you don't mind."

"What's your name?"

"Joey. Tell her I have something I need to discuss with her in person."

The woman dialed and leaned the phone against her here, "Hello, Ms. Redfield. There's a Joey down here in the medical waiting room who'd like to see you…." She paused, and then covered the speaker with her hand, "She says she doesn't know any Joeys."

 _God dammit, Claire._ He realized she hadn't been there when he and Sheva made up their original cover story for the Terra Save fundraiser, "From Massini Preserve, I came to the fundraiser last night and the preserve owners are interested in donating to the cause."

The woman reiterated it, and he heard Claire's tone change on the other end of the line, though he was unable to make out her words, "She'll be right down."

In her sweats, flip flops, and glasses, Claire came down the hallway. She looked about as worn as he felt. Through the grape vine, he heard she'd had an early dinner with Irving, but that was something he'd ask about later.

 _"Relax and walk with me. You look like the deer I ran over before I ran it over. I have something to tell you too."_

 _"It's been a day." He growled._

" _You said you found something?"_ As they came down the hallway she stopped whispering. Chris wondered about cameras but figured it was already too late. He hadn't had much choice besides coming inside, "Have you eaten anything yet?"

"Just a minute."

He sat with Claire in the café in silence, his hand over the phone which was back in his pocket, "Heard it got rough down there. You should get something to eat." She pressed, he looked up at Sheva and the rest of Delta Team, they'd migrated over to one of the tables, eating and talking. The selections of food keeping warm on the steamers _did_ look good.

"I will." He was tired yet restless. Emotionally drained.

"Anyway, Irving and I talked. He dropped a pretty serious hint that our suspicions are founded— you look really worried and it's making me worried."

"I am. They are founded." Chris handed her the phone and watched. Her brow wrinkled, eyes widened, and she brought her hand to cover her mouth, "Think it's her?"

"It's her." Claire croaked, stroking the screen with her thumb as if trying to provide comfort to the woman's image, "Oh, Jill."

* * *

 **Okay, so I feel a need to have them in a Tricell facility because I'm self indulgent. I'm going to do more descriptions and investigations in the next chapter, as I feel Chris is kind of in a haze right now. Though, there's always the possibility I'll edit the heck out of this. (also, I'm not sure how to make a troll fit—if you REALLY LIKE the troll/creepy moth thing in the truck and will miss them, PM me and we'll work them in somehow!) . Obviously Sheva is getting pretty suspicious of what the F Chris is up to, so her chapter will be next. Will she get answers? :O We'll find out in the next chapter!**

 **Thanks for reading! : )**


	12. Chapter 12

**Sorry for the delay. I've been on vacation without WIFI access. Enjoy : ) Thanks as always to everyone who's supported this story so far!**

* * *

 **Chapter 12:**

Sheva watched from the corner of her eye, Claire staring at the phone—Irving's phone. Never catalogued evidence. Both of them upset, Claire especially, and it ever increasing in obviousness that Chris' mind was somewhere completely different than a mission to locate and apprehend the terrorist rings in Kijuju.

Sheva survived by knowing things—where she was going, who the target was, what to watch out for. Standard for someone in a career like her own. Being left in the dark was something on level of going driving without enough fuel to arrive at the destination.

She gathered her determination and stood, "Hey, Chris." She said, "Can I talk to you when you get a chance?" His head snapped up, and he muttered something of an agreement though contradicted with a gesture of waving her off. Sheva had her own job to do, and a part of that maintained that she kept her partner in line.

Claire wiped her eyes. Sheva felt a pang of guilt, knowing she was interrupting something but unable to stop herself. She didn't stay standing, instead walked into the hallway. Chris followed her with his eyes and turned back to Claire.

For a few minutes, Sheva had a bad feeling he wasn't going to join her. She'd been stood up more than once before—an occupational hazard when you worked undercover with nervous people. Though, this was different. If Chris didn't come talk to her, she'd have to call H.Q. (did H.Q. even consider Chris alive?), and demand to be placed with someone else. Which, was always a messy project, but a partner who wasn't a team player was always messier.

The hallway was crisp and clean. Smelled of rubbing alcohol, waxy potted plants billowing gently from the air conditioning. Chris' tall form almost startled her, "What is it?"

"I think I should be asking you that." She turned toward him. The woman at the desk flipped through the pages of her book.

Chris pressed his lips together.

"What was on Irving's phone?"

"Nothing, I told you I couldn't get into it."

"You're bullshitting me. If that was the case, you would've handed it to the tech guys upstairs." She replied, feeling herself seethe. The woman at the desk might hear them, but she'd already talked to almost all of them, and had to figure out arrangements for B.S.A.A. and Terra Save members to stay, she'd probably grown numb to their various discussions by now, "Do we need to take a walk?"

Chris looked at her, stared back, knowing she had him in a trap and he was unable to talk his way out of it. Sheva took the opportunity to speak again, throwing the final punch, "I'll write you up to H.Q. Tell them about your fake death fiasco and that you're unfit to work. I'm sorry, I know you're upset, but this is tampering with evidence, Chris."

"Sheva, what are you even—"

"I saw you give the phone to Claire." Chris stared at her, mouth opening and closing. _Nothing to say?_ She turned on her heel, the upper hand was gained, and now it was in his court. Sheva marched back toward the cafeteria.

"Fine….make the call." That wasn't what she expected. Sheva looked over her shoulder.

"What's happened to you?" This was the great Chris Redfield? Going to let her be a bitch to him, mess with his reputation?

"A lot of things."

She sighed. His shoulders sagged, he looked worn, but still peered through her, into her eyes, "Can I help you?" The words came from her mouth before she had a better option. Just because he was distracted didn't mean he wasn't _good._ This was still Chris Redfield, after all, and Sheva suddenly didn't feel right about anything. It was all wrong—his behavior, the way Claire cried when she looked at Irving's phone, and through the open door, still sat with her face buried in her hands. Something tugged inside Sheva's chest, nagging instincts telling her to keep talking, to figure this out.

Because this was more than tampering with evidence.

This was some kind of personal stake. After all, that was what he'd said when he'd first come to Massinni Preserve, 'I've got a personal stake in the area.' Sheva had always had taken it as a cover, but she was in the dark about the details as to why Chris wanted to fake his death, and why the B.S.A.A. actually had listed him as dead. Claire just as cryptic as he.

Normally she didn't have a change of heart this fast, not after making threats like she just made, "Please, Chris, let me help you." He said nothing, and after a painful few minutes of silence, she made the semi hurtful realization that he didn't want aid coming from her. Sheva turned around and walked away.

"Sheva, wait!" He reached out to her, fingertips grazing her elbow. She spun around.

"Walk with me." It was her turn to stare at him, she raised her eyebrows, "Walk with me. I'll…please, not here. Walk with me."

So she did.

"What are we doing?"

"A sweep. Off the books."

"Why?"

"Because I'm paranoid, that's all." He smiled at her. It was a fake smile.

So they started down the hallway, one to the next. A few empty exam rooms with the doors propped open and then the windows of a lab where a few young people worked—probably students. They peered into microscopes and ran centrifuges. Airlock doors with bright red warnings about Biological Hazards. A medical lab, which was expected in a setting like the one they were.

Sheva decided it was best to play his game, "If there was anything, why would it be on the ground floor? It's pretty easy to get to, and this place is upstanding as it is. Tricell is a donor."

"Yeah, but a lot of people lease out this building for different medical initiatives." Chris replied to her. She knew what he was getting at.

"They're human rights people, I'm sure they have policy to screen anything that's done here."

So she played along, walking through hallway after hallway until she was exhausted and they turned up nothing but a medical center and research lab.

"What are you looking for, exactly? It would help if I knew."

"Illegal pharmaceutical research."

It was hard to say what was illegal in Kijuju. What violated the various important human rights documents written around the world and adopted by the U.N.? Was that what he was going for? She asked and didn't get much answer. Sheva's room was next to Chris'.

She fell into an uneasy sleep, listening to her partner's pacing footsteps through the wall. Eventually he quieted as well, but Sheva couldn't stop the doubt which haunted her. She picked up on his unease and took it as her own.

Half asleep once again as she heard the squeak of Chris' door opening. Sheva took her opportunity. She bolted upright, crammed her feet into her boots, and took off after him.

" _Chris!"_

He whirled around, staring at her like a child who'd been caught stealing. Sheva moved closer to him, " _Stay here."_ He replied.

" _Where are you going?"_

He didn't reply or stop. Sheva jogged after him, _"do you have supplies? A plan?"_

" _Sheva!"_ He warned.

" _We're partners, Chris. Whatever you're facing, I'm not letting you do it alone!"_

The man paused, he rolled his shoulders back, _"Look. There are no orders from here on in. This is me and my personal business. I'm not dragging you into it."_

" _Your personal ties?"_ Sheva shot back, _"Where are you even going?"_

" _After Irving."_

" _Why?"_

" _Look."_ He stayed standing, _"A few months back I got intel from an unreliable source saying my old partner was still alive. She's being held captive here, in Kijuju. There's a recent picture of her on Irving's phone. I'm not leaving until I know for sure."_

" _This is B.S.A.A. business—"_

" _No, it's not. She's listed as dead in the database, and the man holding her might kill her the moment he knows we're coming. We have to do this quietly."_

Sheva wondered what the point of keeping her alive all of this time was, but she didn't press further. Chris seemed absolutely convinced of it.

" _Do you know where the oil fields are?"_

" _Toward the coast."_

" _Chris."_ He had no idea.

Sheva and Chris went for the humvees, first. Unlocking them with the keys she'd had on her. She was breaking every regulation, but right now wasn't the time to think about it. They grabbed as many nine millimeter clips as they could. Sheva checked a submachine gun from the safe beneath the backseat, one full clip left. She strapped it onto her back, "We need a more discreet vehicle."

"You're right." Chris slammed the trunk and pocketed the keys. Sheva wondered for a moment if she should attempt to return them to Josh, but opted against it. There was no time. They'd have to work with the other truck and reprimand Sheva when they caught up, "Find a car with keys."

"The receptionist." Sheva stated.

"Huh?"

"Look, she's on break. See if she left her car keys."

So she handed the machine gun to Chris, and went through the door. Sure enough, the woman's key ring hung on the handle to one of the desk drawers. Sheva snagged it and went back out the door. She dangled them in front of Chris.

"I'll drive. We'll get to the marshlands. From there, we'll have to find a boat."

It took a few minutes to find the car in the garage, pressing the fob over and over, listening desperately for the click of the locking mechanism. Sheva started the car, finding the tank nearly empty, "Hopefully we can make it to the marshlands."

"We'll work it out."Chris muttered, placing the machinegun on the backseat and using a coat left in the car to cover it.

Sheva eased out of the garage, and onto the road. They needed as much of a head start as possible, especially if their absence was soon noticed. _It's for a good cause._ She might not have agreed entirely that they should have been shooting off like loan wolves (and stealing a car in the process), but perhaps Chris was right in that this was their only window. Rescues were tricky, and she hoped he had a plan.

"What was her name?"

"Hmm?"

"Your partner. What's her name?"

"Jill."

"Valentine?"

"Yeah."

"I've heard of her." The one who'd died in action, one of the founders, "You and Jill were close?" Chris made a noise which sounded like an affirmative. Sheva never was one to mind her own business, and she couldn't help it now, "What happened to her?"

She didn't expect Chris to answer, he took a deep breath, "It was about this time last year."

* * *

 **This chapter was a bit slow, but I felt it was important. Please Review! Either a Jill Chapter or the flashback will be next.**


	13. Chapter 13

**Back to our dear Jill.**

 **Warning: physical abuse.**

 **Excella is such a delicious villain and I had fun writing this chapter. The villains are my favorites to write : )**

* * *

 **Chapter 13:**

A harsh rattle at her door and Jill bolted upright, "Snow white." Excella called, "Wake up Ms. Snow." She rattled harder. The tapping of her heels on the cement, "For the love of God what am I paying you for?! Get her ass up!"

Jill scrambled to her feet as two orderlies entered her cell. The gloves came off with Excella. You didn't fuck around if you wanted to live. Jessica might have been the one who hacked off her ponytail with a kitchen knife while screaming empty threats, but out of the two of them, Excella was the real worry: the one who had Wesker by the balls with the corporate work she did. Jill knew from experience not to cross her.

* * *

 _Her third escape was much better planned. She'd gotten to know the way around the facility. The burns from the latest attempt of making the device on her chest work healing nicely. There was nothing better to do than plan. It kept her sane. It kept her Jill. Gave her a flicker of hope in the otherwise bleakness of the situation (third time was the charm, after all)._

 _She escaped the same way, using the paperclip she'd stuck into her mouth when she'd been taken to have the burns looked at. Apparently they hadn't caught onto it, or didn't care enough to look in to the way she got the door open._

 _This time she made it outside. The sun was low. Morning or evening, probably morning, Jill wasn't quite sure. Her sense of direction and time skewed. It was her first time outside since arrival, but enjoying it could come later. She moved herself in a circle, spinning around, trying to get a sense of where she was._

 _There was brush and red soil, a towering mountainside which the building was partially built into. A mostly deserted parking lot. She couldn't see anywhere to run, maybe uphill, through the rocks. The goal would have to be to work her way around the building, and from there find a road to follow. Though, she'd have to stick to the brush and boulders as not to be seen. Jill decided it was her best option. She got to it, pushing herself to run as fast as her physical limits allowed._

 _In their boots, the guards were faster over the sharp rocks. Jill was lifted off the ground by two men who each doubled her weight. She kicked uselessly and quickly gave up her fight in the interest of self preservation._

 _She'd seen Excella since arrival at the facility, but never spoke much to her. The business woman moved agonizingly slow across the parking lot, proud steps on heeled shoes. "Put her on her feet." She said, and they did, holding her arms. Stretching her between them, a greasy hand on her head taking a fistful of hair, forcing her to meet Excella's eyes. Jill stared her down: the diamond studs which glinted in her earlobes, a designer blazer and skirt, "Jill. What is it that you think you're doing?"_

 _She didn't answer, "Hm?" Excella said, the man tugged Jill's hair. She kept up her silence, "You see, Jill. I'm a career woman at this organization. When I get left in charge I don't like my merchandise deciding it's going to run out the front door, you understand? So tell me, what are you doing?"_

 _The woman was forcing her to dig her own grave. Jill grimaced, "Taking a walk."_

 _"Heh." A single black strand escaped from Excella's perfectly sculpted hair, "Nice morning, isn't it?"_

 _A tug on her hair, "Ah…Lovely." She didn't mind being outside, instead drank in the fresh air and sunlight. Being held by her hair in the middle of the parking lot. Someone would be outside soon, they'd notice her._

 _"Taking a walk…taking a walk…I guess it gets a little stuffy inside, doesn't it?"_

 _"It does."_

 _"You see, it was a noble effort, Jill. But this facility isn't open to the public. Employees here are well compensated and therefore are aware of the sensitivity. By that: when they see you losing your composure and running out my expensive reinforced glass doors like you're on fire, they're not going to ask questions about it." Excella paused, smiling. Jill didn't like that smile, "I understand wanting to get fresh air. Must be hard, cooped up in that basement."_

 _She knew enough to see Excella baiting her and kept silent. Jill assumed it was time to drag her inside, but seconds passed and they stood on the pavement staring at each other. "You want to be outside? I guess you can stay outside a little while. Get it out of you system. Take her to the courtyard, lock the doors. It's Sunday, no one's around."_

 _So they chained her in the gravel courtyard, hung by her wrists from the flagpole at middle point of the sprawling complex. Jill bent her knees, trying to find a more comfortable position but the binds around her wrists and arms didn't allow much movement. Excella walked up to her, "This should be a nice vacation for you, Snow White, maybe you'll come in with a tan. You American women find that attractive, don't you? "_

 _Excella walked away, and Jill stood, bare toes curling in the rough gravel. Something poked her foot, she cringed and shifted herself. Seriously no one was around? She was in a damn courtyard of a building. A secret fucking base. She somehow expected a more innocent cover, not chaining up prisoners outside sort of thing._

 _The sun rose, peeking over the wall and shining directly into her face. Jill hung her head and closed her eyes. Making a point to breathe through her nose and keep her mouth shut, she continued to think,_ _ **hope,**_ _that somehow someone would see her. Was it worth screaming?_

 _She hadn't seen much around. With each breath she felt the flagpole digging into her back. The people who survived captive situations and torture were the ones who never gave up, who fought until they became more trouble than they were worth, "HELP!?" The call ripped from her throat, bouncing off the surrounding dark walls and fading into the air, "HELP!"_

 _Jill glanced around the courtyard, the two doors she saw remained shut, a balcony covered by an awning which was two stories off the ground with the door closed. It was still, hot and quiet. Could her voice even travel beyond the complex? Beads of sweat forming on her shoulders and face. Any minute Excella would come back, slap her around, threaten her not to do it again and place her in the cell._

 _Any minute._

 _The sun got higher until it was over her head and then there was a noise from the balcony. Jill raised her stiff neck, licking her dry lips. Excella stood and leaned over the railing, wearing her rhinestone sunglasses, holding a liter bottle of water._

 _She poured it out, slowly, over the edge of the balcony, onto the dry rocks._

 _Jill hung her head again, hearing the woman's distant laughs. Skin taught with sunburn, head throbbing. Never had she taken the heat well: pasty skin and light blue eyes didn't mix with extended sun exposure._

 _She dozed._

 _A blast of something painful and cold. Jill screamed, coughing and turning her head as to escape the torrent. Excella stood several feet from her, holding hose with a pressure nozzle. She sprayed her again, Jill cried out. As thirsty as she was, being blasted with water every several seconds didn't help, "Cut her down. Take her in." Excella tossed the hose aside and marched away._

* * *

Jill walked, a stride behind Excella with guards at her back. Heavy headed with an aching throat, each hallway they traversed seemed to be miles beyond comfortable. A gentle vibration in her chest with deep breaths—had she inhaled that much water when they were interrogating her about the B.S.A.A.? Her lungs seemed to think she'd inhaled quite a bit. The woman dressed in a white suit opened a door with a key card. It was a control room with monitors and large tinted windows overlooking a lab, one which Jill hadn't seen yet.

"You wanted her, Albert?" Wesker shifted his weight back and forth, staring at the flickering screens. Black leather couches, a glass coffee table with some modern art statue which Jill didn't understand the point of but knew plenty of people, Claire included, who would.

"Heard anything from Jessica?" He snapped without looking at them.

"Nothing. Irving's been back quite a while. She wasn't with him?"

"Seems to have gotten herself lost." He was tall, Jill never thought he seemed terribly tall when she was in S.T.A.R.S., but the situation was dramatically different now. She stared up at him, a head above her own height, "Jill." He said.

"Wesker." Her voice rough.

"It's Albert, please, dearheart, we've talked about this." He cleared off the table, and then removed something from an armored box sitting on the counter, "Now lay down." He patted the surface, a red object in hand, "Let's try this again, shall we?"

* * *

 **Please review : ) (Secret, when I first saw RE5 all those years ago, things like the above scene is exactly what I imagined as the explanation for Jill's blonde hair, like it bleached out under the sunlight if they were making her stay outside. Though, I don't think she's blonde in my vision of this).**


	14. Chapter 14

**Welp it's been a while since I updated. In this chapter we finally get to find out how Jill 'died'. Thanks as always to everyone!**

 **Worked on using a half-flashback, half-narration style for this go round. Let me know what you think of it! : ) This was probably the hardest to write without letting it get slow. This is both Chris and Jill POV in the flashback. Hope you enjoy it! (Should I mention that my version of RE: Revelations is a little not cannon too? Probably :p)**

 **Warning: Some injury descriptions**

* * *

 **Chapter 14:**

 _Chris and Jill had made it through the house easily. After all, Spencer's guards were dead. Killed in some strange way—blunt force trauma, Jill had said, and he didn't have anything better to go on. Their backup and medics would come through and further investigate it._

 _But for now, it was him and Jill. Covert agents on a covert mission. Spencer was supposed to let them in the front door. It had been a hell of an effort to get a hold of him, but in his old age, the Umbrella founder agreed: he'd talk with them. There was a new issue at hand, he'd said, something dangerous on the horizon from an old Umbrella employee. It didn't take a rocket scientist to piece together that Spencer spoke to them about Wesker._

 _A white flag, olive branch, whatever you wanted to call it. Chris was anxious to see what he had to say._

 _Low stress mission, low risk. A few patrols in the forest around Spencer's secluded mountain estate, just to keep an eye on them, but they'd be home by evening. Hopefully they'd be home by evening, and whoever killed the guards still wasn't around._

 _He remembered the velvet box he had waiting at the top of his closet, but he forced his mind to return to the present. They had their professional work now. All those romantic ideas and stuff that he used to choke on (but now desperately researched on the internet) would have to wait until later._

 _Chris hadn't expected the carnage which they walked through the open front door into, the bodies strewn about the tile floors, some of them lying in piles of their own gore. Others ripped limb from limb. Worse than anything he'd ever seen, made even more disturbing with the distinct lack of B.O.W.s around the premise._

 _Whatever happened, they seem to have missed it, "What the hell?" She muttered._

 _"He stood us up." Chris said._

 _"I think someone beat us here." She replied, kneeling beside one of the bodies and pressing her fingers to his neck, "But there's no one here the right age to be Spencer. These men are mercenaries." Jill stood, grimacing as she wiped her gloved hands over her thighs._

 _"These poor bastards." Chris muttered, "I guarantee this wasn't what they signed on for."_

 _"Dangerous work. Rest their souls. But I wonder if he-who-must-not-be-named is our culprit."_

 _"That's a strong possibility. Wonder how he knew we were coming?" Chris replied, hoping she was wrong, but at the same time wondering what was left of Wesker. It had been years since their last run in. Had he deteriorated to the point where he found no option but to tear men apart? Better question: what else had the strength to rip a man's arm clean off and move it halfway across the foyer? B.O.W.s, sure, but they tended to feed on their victims._

 _"So the question's where is he hiding?"_

 _"If he's even still here." Chris stated, feeling his hopes diminish. If Wesker broke in, why not take Spencer with him? Leaving before anyone got in the way certainly made sense, but from experience, not everything Wesker did made sense._

* * *

"What did you find?" Sheva stared at the road. It was easier without her looking at him.

"A lot." Chris said, swallowing. He'd never told this story before, writing it on the report had been hard enough. Somehow he expected it to be harder, like a hot knife in his throat, but everything was strangely hollow. His voice seemed to echo around the car. Chris felt almost like he was listening to someone talk rather than being the one to talk himself, "Not much at all, but the facility beneath the house was extensive. Spencer was a sadistic bastard. He was still fucking with people down there, probably up to a few weeks before we found our way."

"A full facility?"

"Almost." Chris explained, "We found a library. Spencer was wheelchair bound cornered himself there, the guy we were tracking—Albert Wesker. He beat us there."

"Heard of him."

* * *

 _They heard the scream from upstairs, and that distracted them from the basement. Jill was first, rushing up the flights to the top, to another locked door. Chris nodded, watching her back while she removed the lock pick from her pocket._

 _She knelt down, nodding her head as she always did when she felt the lock give beneath her skilled work. Chris gave her a nod back, that he was ready to get through the door._

 _It was a library, massive and overlooking the mountainous landscape surrounding the estate, "Wesker." Jill called him by name before Chris had a chance. His back turned. A dark sport coat around his broad shoulders. He stared out the window. Spencer's body lay on the floor at his feet, entrails spilled around him._

 _"Freeze!" Chris shouted. This had never worked before but he had little else to say. Wesker turned, in a blink he was in front of Chris, gripping him by the front of the shirt and flinging him backward, over a table. He groaned, the crystal candle holders from the surface tumbling with him and shattering on the floor._

 _He fought to his feet, in time to see Wesker slam Jill into the wall before he bolted, "Get him!" He screamed, Jill was still on her feet, already charging out the door._

* * *

"So you chased him, the two of you?"

"He broke my rib when he threw me into the table. Jill had a head start, but I caught up to them. We went into the basement."

"And that was the facility?"

"That was the facility." Chris clarified, "Down there, there was a lot. But not just the lab. It was the last place which had hard copies of Umbrella corporate secrets. He'd spent years printing everything out and storing it down there. Wesker wanted it gone. We didn't know, but he'd activated the locking systems and the nuclear device Spencer had built into his estate."

"He set it to detonate?" Sheva cried. Chris nodded, slowly.

"Wesker wants to make sure no one else has the information he does."

* * *

 _Jill made it downstairs, seconds before he did. It took another half hour of looking before they found Wesker, and by then, they were in the last minutes of the countdown. Chris' rib screamed, but he pushed through, blood boiling, determined to end the nightmare once and for all. Then he'd go home, he and Jill could crack a bottle of wine and celebrate._

 _It was a long awaited celebration, but first they'd have to find Wesker. "Where's our backup?" They were all medics, securing the scene upstairs. Chris felt a strike of dread, but forced it down. He and Jill had faced him before, and they would again, maybe with better insights._

 _They found him, standing in front of a computer as casually as if he were in his living room, "Wesker! Stop!" She shouted, the alarms warned of closing shutters._

 _"This ends here." Chris said._

 _"If you want to kill us all, be my guest. There isn't a lot of time." Wesker snarled. Chris opened fire, Jill followed his lead. But Wesker was too fast. They couldn't hit him, not when he was focused._

 _He went for Jill, and Chris took the chance, unloading his clip into Wesker's thigh. The man let out a groan, clenching his leg._

 _"Come on!"_

 _"Forty-five seconds until lab seal." The automatic voice chirped, "Forty-five seconds."_

 _Jill and Chris bolted, shoulder to shoulder, up flight after flight of stairs and finally down the main hallway, heading for the main entrance to the lab which had been hidden under the staircase in the foyer, "We need extracton! Now!" She shouted into her radio. A jumbled reply of the helicopter waiting._

 _"Twenty seconds until lab seal. Please evacuate immediately—"_

 _Fast, light footsteps behind them._

 _"—upon sealing, quarantine doors are unable to be opened."_

 _"Run! Keep running!" Chris panted. He wondered what the fuck Spencer was doing down here all this time. If Umbrella was gone, where was he selling? No time to think._

 _Wesker was between he and Jill in a flash, going for Chris, pinning him against the wall just beyond the sealing area. A tight hand on his throat, crushing his neck. Dark spots consumed the world within seconds—seconds he didn't have. Five, exactly, until the lab sealed, but they were already out. He smiled, sickly, and drew back his arm, "Goodnight, Chris—"_

 _Jill let out a howl, the only other time he'd heard her make that noise was when Jessica tried to stab her on the Queen Zenobia. She'd always been athletic, Chris found himself thinking about that. Somehow using Wesker's body to vault herself up, she wrapped her legs around his neck and arms around his head. She threw her weight backward. The was the sound of bones cracking_

 _And a release of pressure on his neck._

 _Chris crumpled to the ground, unable to make his oxygen choked body move fast enough, watching two struggling people fall in a pile beyond the shudders and the metal slam in front of his face with bone crushing force, "Jill!" He tried to scream, but noise hardly came from his bruised throat. He smashed his fists into the thick, blast-proof doors, "Jill!"_

 _Strong arms wrapping around him, then, "We have to go! The radiation will seep through!"_

 _"We can't open them!"_

 _"Redfield!"_

 _He fought. He screamed her name at a metal shutter._

 _"We don't leave men behind!"_

 _"She's gone!"_

 _"Leave me!" He demanded, "Leave me!" They still dragged him backward._

* * *

"They dragged me away." He said, rubbing his neck, "Had to get away from the blast. The radiation doors couldn't cold it forever, they said… We left her…I left her." His words caught now. Was there another option? Could he have demanded to have dynamite set on the doors? Were the supplies on hand? Why hadn't he checked? It was the same argument he'd had with himself for the last year.

"You would have been dead." Sheva consoled, "You wouldn't have been here. You wouldn't have been able to help her now. How'd you know she was alive?"

"I served on one more mission after she died. We apprehended a group who would have been working for Wesker. After his 'death', a lot of Wesker's guys tried to go out on their own, and we rounded them up quickly. Or rather—the B.S.A.A. did, I'm sure you know all that." He was thankful for the darkness of the car. He forced himself to breathe, slowly, "One of them had her pistol. The custom one from S.T.A.R.S. She had it on her in that blast. Somehow Wesker got out of that building, and I knew she might have lived, somehow one of his people must've took a souvenir. I wasn't sure but deep down I think I knew. That picture, on Irving's phone, that proves it."

"Now we find her." Sheva reached out, touching his arm and quickly withdrawing, "We find her, we stop Wesker, and we stop all of this madness."

"We're partners." He repeated lamely, trying to sound genuine.

Sheva didn't seem to think anything of the awkwardness of it coming out of his mouth, "'Till the end." She assured.

* * *

 _Jill tried to catch her breath, staring in numb shock as the shudder closed._

 _"Lab sealed." The electronic voice said. She shut her eyes, thinking of Chris and waiting for the blast of heat. This hadn't been planned. She thought they'd fall sideways, not into here, but the situation hadn't allowed for much thinking. Jill realized after a few more seconds that she wasn't dead—she felt little more than Wesker's breath against her thigh and felt his arm twitch underneath her hip._

 _Did they have more time? As the initial shock wore off, the realization she lay in a pile on the floor with Wesker dawned on her. She scrambled to her feet as he sat up. Another surge of adrenaline._

 _He twisted his neck and cracked it back and forth. She distanced herself by running down the hall, pulling her pistol. Maybe there was another way out._

 _Wesker was in front of her, "You could kill a man with those thighs." She detected a laugh. Why was he laughing?_

 _Red glowing eyes which bored into her own, his glasses broken from her grab. Did he think she'd stand while he killed Chris in the same heinous way as Spencer and the guards? He was stupid— after all, they were both trapped in here now._

 _Her radio wire was gone from her ear. Jill stepped backward. It was probably on the floor, "Why aren't we dead? Your detonator short out?" She spat. That wasn't witty or really good at all, she always wanted to be witty. Claire was so damn good at it, could pitch arguments like fast balls. In this situation she could use a sharper tongue, but she had what she had. Claire. Chris._

 _Jill was going to die. She couldn't think about them, "There's a ten minute lead time and a vehicle access tunnel. In case high ranking officials get held up with their work. Lucky for you, I happen to be one of them. Or rather, happened to be. Spencer doesn't change much of his programming."_

 _"Excuse me-AHH!" She was down, he pressed his hand into her thigh and snapped her femur. She felt it break. Her stomach twisted, and she retched. A scream caught in her throat but she couldn't make a sound. She gasped, desperate to breathe. Women had high pain tolerance, she told herself, she only had to endure until the lead time was over. Maybe she'd get lucky and tap out._

 _She was in his arms, jostled, and in pain and smelling his Listerine breath. Jill wanted to be sick, but instinct made her steady herself, making sure he wouldn't drop her on the leg. She gripped his jacket as he sprinted._

 _Somehow outside, and somehow crammed into a car. She moaned and twisted on the backseat, "Drive the fucking car." Wesker screamed at his driver._

 _"Where?"_

 _"Just drive! There's a nuclear weapon in that building!" He roared at the driver. Jill wondered if they'd get far enough. Was the B.S.A.A. far enough? Was Chris alive?_

 _The acceleration pushed her body and leg into the back of the seat. She felt around desperately for a weapon. Wesker reached to the back, pulling a white and red case from underneath his own chair, "Don't you fucking…touch…me!" Jill warned._

 _She swiped at his face, catching his nose. He leaned over, pressing his hand to her other leg. Jill froze, "Lay still."_

 _She did. He prepared something. She heard him rummaging around the kit and wondered why he wanted to do anything with her. Jill leaned her face into the cushions, trying to compose herself, trying not to panic, trying not to focus on how much her leg fucking hurt but that was the hardest._

 _Wesker's gripped her face roughly, pressing a cloth into her nose and mouth, "Inhale, Jill. This will be a painful ride otherwise." She struggled against him._

 _Jill didn't remember breathing, but suddenly she was asleep._

* * *

 _ **Thanks for reading! I hope you guys like it. I feel like this is a little janky too. I wanted her to die in the explosion but also make her die saving Chris. Let me know what y'all think about this version of the death scene! I couldn't bring myself to write the window scene, even though it was an epic cinema sequence.**_


	15. Chapter 15

**Well, since chapter 14 blew this fic out of the water with how many hits it got, here's another update.**

 **Sorry for how late it is! And thanks as always!**

 **Leave me a review. It's super fast and easy and like I've said, there are a lot of you.**

* * *

 **Chapter 15:**

Claire sighed, knowing that Chris and Sheva were gone, and suddenly unsure what to do with herself. The all too familiar feeling of helplessness that she hated to have. Chris and Sheva were off, heading into god knew what and facing god knew who.

She was deep in thought, had come up with something with the potential to be useful on her way in and now was going to get the car she rented. _Chris, you better be keeping yourself out of trouble._ She thought. Head down, marching down the hallway.

"Hey, Claire." She nearly knocked into Josh, and he startled her.

"Oh…Hey….Sorry, just taking a walk."

"Two in the morning walks." Josh stated, "Best time for walking."

Claire wasn't sure if he was being sarcastic, "What are you doing up?"

"Couldn't sleep. Any idea where Sheva went?"

Claire chewed the inside of her lip. She'd watched Chris and Sheva disappear out the door and not come back. Still sitting in the cafeteria, they hadn't noticed her, and Claire took care to keep it that way, "Got called away again." Claire said.

Josh looked at her sideways, "Called? By who?"

She was stuck but it was fine. Claire exhaled. The secret was too burdening to manage on her own. It threatened to eat her alive. "Come with me." She said. She didn't want to travel Kijuju alone at night.

"Where are we going?" He asked, as they stepped into the garage.

"Sheva and Chris are after something. We're going to help them. Heard of the class A's?"

"Super humans. Viral induced genome modification." Josh spoke, eyeing her, "As a matter of fact I have. Thought you were supposed to be above all that with Terra Save."

Claire grimaced, "Just come with me."

Though, he did, surprising enough. "I don't like this."

"If anyone asks, I held you at gunpoint." She muttered, twisting the key of the ignition in her rental car, "Now, where's the closest vet hospital?"

"Closest what?"

"Veterinarian, a doctor for animals—"

"I'm not a complete idiot." He replied more harshly, "Why the hell do you need a vet hospital? You got rabies or something?"

That was a stupid joke. Claire scrunched her nose as to express her displeasure with it, but Josh didn't seem to notice and she was quickly distracted with trying to find her billet to get out of the parking garage, "Sure. Fine." She replied, "Which way do I turn."

"What are you looking for? You think Class A's are hanging around veterinary emergency centers?"

"No, I have an idea."

"Care to elaborate? You know, there's a lot of robbery of meds around here. You saw the hospital pharmacy's behind a blast door. Most these places are going to be locked up tight. There's one up the road but it has a barbed wire fence."

"Fan-fucking-tastic." Claire chewed her lip, following Josh's directions, watching the road carefully in the pools of light from her headlights.

She pulled alongside the side fence to the wildlife rehabilitation and veterinary center which Josh guided her to. Barbed wire strung loosely across the top, she had her jacket on the backseat and was wearing a sweatshirt. _For Chris. For Sheva. For Jill. Just do it._ Claire heaved a deep breath and pushed her seatbelt off of her shoulder, "Watch the car."

"What are you doing?"

"Watch the car. If I get caught…" She dug through her pocket, handing her phone to him, "Call the Terra Save lawyer."

"I'm not sure I'd trust the legal system in this country. You're better off robbing something on the other side of the boarder."

"No time."

"Claire!" She slammed the door. Okay, so she was being unfair putting him in this situation, but that was her personal choice. She took a quick glance up and down the street. A red light cast by sodium lights over the fence and no security cameras save for the one on the front of the building. The car was out of the way from it. The humidity in the air seemed to cast a fog across the street.

Claire heaved a breath, holding the jacket. She wrapped the sleeves around her neck like a cape and gripped the fence, starting to climb, feeling it wobble treacherously underneath her weight.

Once at the wires, she slung the jacket over them, using it to crawl over the barbed wire. Her heart stopped, looking at the distance she'd fall if she lost her balance. Four meters, maybe a little less. Not too far, but head first would be the end of this plan.

She slung her legs over, feeling the barbs digging into her, even through the thick material of the jacket. She went to pull back, trying to get her feet underneath her and be able to get to the ground. Claire's breath caught—her arm was snagged, one of the barbs wrapped in the material of her hoodie, the skin beneath burning.

If someone came and saw her on the fence, she was finished. She had to make this faster. Cars whizzed by on the main road, hopefully too far and too fast to notice anything out of the ordinary.

 _Okay, you're okay._ She wrapped her fingers in the lattice of the fence below and tried to work her other arm free, pulling desperately, feeling the barbed wire give. Claire paused, exhaled, and adjusted—using all of her strength to push herself up and free the hook from the fabric. She was loose.

Claire dropped to the dirt below, bending her knees to absorb the impact, but nonetheless felt it up her thighs and back. _Getting too old._ She grabbed the jacket sleeve and ripped it down, wincing as the material tore.

One day she'd consider her clothing budget.

Okay, so she might not have been Jill, but Claire knew well enough what she was doing when it came to breaking into a building. She avoided the camera on the front door, but there was a window around the side which was left open. The old screen was no match for her pocket knife, and she slipped through, into an exam room.

The LED light on her keyring was all she had, and maybe she should have _actually considered_ her gear budget. _Too late._ Nothing in this room that she wanted, it took a bit of searching until she found a cabinet with a silver case.

She opened it, smiling, and then grabbed several vials off the shelf and a plastic container filled with feather-ended syringes.

Claire held the flashlight in her mouth, holding the case with one had and squinting to read one of the glass vials with the other. Xylazine, halothane, others that she recognized as sedatives. She stuffed the vials into the container and made her way back to the window.

Maybe she should have brought a backpack too. Claire groaned, forcing her way through the tiny opening, tripping over herself as she reached the ground. She snatched the two cases and bolted across the yard. And the fence. The fucking fence. She looked down at her arms full of supplies—frowning at the lack of planning she'd put into this 'master plan'.

She took a moment. Climbing up with one case to lean over and drop it on the ground. It didn't look like it broke open. Claire breathed again. On to the heavier case, the one with the specially designed rifle. _Oh, please don't break._

Leaning over the barbed wire, further down this time, feeling it dig into her chest and catch on her hoodie. Claire groaned, dropped the case, and realized she was stuck. _Fucking…._ She chewed her lip, feeling it chap.

With a groan, she pulled herself over the top and lost her balance. Claire swiped out with her hands, but she was tumbling, caught by the barbed wire as it grabbed her front and slowed her fall. She landed on her back into the dry grass, the strings of wire falling on top of her, swiping across her cheek and nose. It took a moment to force the air back into her lungs.

Muttering every obscenity she could think of as she did her best to wiggle out from underneath the cumbersome bundle, Claire pushed herself to her feet. Josh waited for her, pressed against the window, "You trying to get yourself killed?" He asked.

"No—ah—" She winced, her shoulders hurt, blood was on her lips, probably from her cheek. She went to get into the driver side.

"No. You might have a concussion."

"I would not give myself a concussion doing this." But she slid over anyway.

"What the hell is all that?"

"Tranquilizer and a dart gun. How do you feel about trying to catch up with Chris and Sheva?"

"Class A's. Wesker is supposed to be dead, and that woman from the village is too." Josh eyed her, "It's a good idea. What makes you think it will work?"

She let out an exasperated laugh, both at the question and her expression in the car mirror. Blood ran from shallow scrapes across her cheek and nose. Her face halfway smeared with dirt, "No. I'm not. But if there was her there might be another one. We know bullets don't work well."

"It's a pretty big gamble."

"Everything in this business is a gamble."

They drove in silence for a moment, Claire pressing a scrap of her already destroyed jacket to her face. She felt a deeper cut in her bicep, but couldn't bring herself to look at it yet, "You're awful reckless." He said, and she felt a pang of guilt again.

"No." Claire shook her head, "I'm desperate."

"For what exactly?" Josh demanded.

"Can you keep a secret?"

"Considering I just aided you in committing a felony, I think I might have to."

"Sheva and Chris are heading for the marshes."

"The marshes are big."

"I know." Claire said out of habit. She actually didn't know, but she didn't have any better advice, "A B.S.A.A. member is being held captive somewhere around this area. This is off the record. We can't have it on the record because I can't risk her getting killed."

"You have an honorary B.S.A.A. clearance. That's why the chain of command is screwy these last few days."

Claire chewed her lip. Well, she _was_ Chris' sister. Josh hadn't questioned a whole lot of Chris showing up again, maybe he was under the impression he'd been under deep cover like Sheva had been, but she didn't risk that, "Yeah. We're trying to get her out, and get her out alive, but something big's going on."

"What are you thinking?" Josh asked her.

Claire shook her head, "More Class A's, the amount of traffic we've seen through the area. We've seen a lot drugs in and out, a lot more than the local hospitals should support—and a lot of those are sedatives. Human sedatives. Chloroform, mostly, and a lot of world-wide disappearances which, if you look deep enough, point to the region. If you ask me, I think someone might be trying to build an army. A repeat of cold war super soldier experiments."

"You'd sound like a conspirator if I hadn't been hearing something codenamed 'uroboros'. Some paranoid locals are calling it a new world order project. Who's good enough to pull it off?"

"Wesker's good. And say he's alive somehow. I know I wouldn't be happy being the only one of my kind." Clare stated, Josh stared at the road.

"We'll head out after Sheva." He said, "We'll bring them some backup. It'll be a reconnaissance."

"I've been using another radio channel." Claire stated, "I have people. Half the B.S.A.A. would drop everything right now to have her back. It's just we have to be careful. You never know who has eyes where."

Josh glanced at her again, "you've had a tetanus shot, right?"

* * *

Thanks for reading. If you notice any continuity errors, please point them out to me : ) Please review. Super emotionally charged chapter with Jill and our villains coming up next!

Also—I think Claire is super capable. But, I just thought her kinda falling over the fence was too amusing to write to give up : )


	16. Chapter 16

Thanks so much for the reviews and follows/favs, guys!

Here's the next chapter. Sorry it's not quite as soon as I wanted.

 **Warning: torture scene, mentions of loss of eyesight**

* * *

 **Chapter 16:**

It didn't hurt, but it was heavy, cumbersome and make her shoulders feel stiff. Jill shifted her weight back and forth on the table, desperately hoping Wesker would decide to take the device off and go make his adjustments once again. It might be a little more time consuming this time since he'd soldered it on to the base rather than screwed it.

"Where the hell is she?" Excella snapped into her phone, suddenly turning toward Wesker, smoothing over her blazer, "Something's up with Jessica."

"Jessica can manage herself. She can find her way upstairs."

"Not sure she can." Excella grumbled.

Voices from further down the hallway. Jill looked up, watching the doorway. Irving first, sweaty and red faced. Probably climbed the stairs instead of taking the elevator.

She had bigger things to be preoccupied with than Irving, running her fingernail over the surface of the gem, swearing she saw the slightest movement of fluid from within. _Great. Who the fuck knows what that is coming in contact with your innards._ Jessica scrambled in behind him, still dressed in the heavy looking hooded garment. Her commotion caught Jill's attention, watching her grip the door jam and pull herself around, accidently banging her knee on the couch and after a few seconds of grouping around, seated herself with great poise upon the surface.

"Look what the cat finally dragged in." Excella drawled.

"I was preoccupied."

"Cameras showed you stumbling around the basement for the last hour." Excella stated. Wesker turned to look between them.

"I need more." Jessica said, rubbing her arms, "I need more, it's getting worse."

"I told you she wasn't a good match, Albert."

"See how long you can wait." He said, "You're building a tolerance awfully fast."

Jill was interested now.

"She's not a good genetic match." Excella said again, "We told you this would happen and you wanted it anyway."

"It's fine. I'm fine." Jessica snapped back, "Mind your own damn business!" She shook her head, reminding Jill of the way a cat would shake after being rained on. Frantic as if she was trying to get something off. She pressed her fingers to her face.

"Go ahead and prepare it." Wesker said, Excella huffed.

Irving, apparently trying to make himself as small as possible, sat in the corner with his face in the screen of a laptop.

Jill watched Excella, cringing as she ripped open the plastic casing of a needle and another for a syringe. She jammed the needle through the rubber stopper of a thick glass bottle and drew out a dose. Silently hoping that she wasn't going to be stuck, Jill returned her attention to Jessica, now rocking back and forth on the couch, "Please…." She moaned.

Excella moved toward her, coming to her side and uncapping the syringe. Jill looked back to Irving, "Shit…shit, shit, shit." Everyone ignored him. It was common for Irving to talk to himself.

Jessica panted, "Are you alright?" Wesker asked her.

"Yes. Fine."

Excella gripped the woman by the chin, forcing her reddened eyelids open with one hand. Jessica yanked away and launched herself to the other end of the couch, nearly falling over the arm, "Blind is what she is."

"I am not!" Jessica hollered.

"Bad genetics." Excella said again, laughing this time. Jill swore she saw a twinkle of orange in Excella's dark eyes as she turned toward the light, and desperately hoped she was wrong.

 _Nope, you're just tripping balls. You're being drugged._ But she wasn't in pain bad enough to impede any of her thought processes, and she felt sober. She cringed and rubbed around her sternum. A sudden harsh jolt which nearly sent her off the edge of the desk, "Don't touch it, Jill. Sit still, I can only deal with one squirming child at a time." Wesker said. She ground her teeth and put her hands in her lap.

"What about Jill? How have you been making it work for her?" Jill glanced between Excella and Wesker, who in turn glanced between each other.

"Will you get her out of here?" Excella cried.

"Who?" Wesker asked, "There are several people in this room who employ the use of that pronoun—"

"Jill!"

"We'll be enjoying her company for the next hour or two while I make sure the device doesn't kill her."

"I run your fucking payroll! You have staff to do that!" Excella's face was turning pink, she paced back and force.

"WHY ISN'T JILL GOING CRAZY?" Jessica screamed, apparently there was a volume contest now. Jill glanced between them. She was still human, right? They hadn't slipped her something? If anything she felt sick and tired, not giddy like Jessica, none of the perks of being virally infected as Wesker seemed to enjoy (if you could call it that). Jill desperately hoped she wasn't in the process of anything of the sort, and felt anxiety creeping up on her.

Wesker wasn't impressed, "Let's lower our voices, ladies. Jill isn't a genetic match, now let's let it drop."

"Then why are we keeping her?" Jessica asked, this time Excella warned her for speaking out of line.

 _I'm sitting right here, you know._ Though, the curiosity was undeniable, _What the hell is he doing?_

Excella picked up a glass which was left sitting on the end table, she whipped it at the wall beside the door. Jessica whirled around at the sound of the crash, "What the hell was that?"

"Told you she's going blind."

"I am not!" Jessica's voice wavered this time.

"Guys…sorry to interrupt…but…." Irving ran his hands through his hair, "The clinic across the street from out safe house got broken into last night."

"What of it?" Excella asked, "What do we keep at the safe house."

"Gold." Irving said, "It's the money we can't launder right away, used it through a third party to buy jewelry and melted it down."

"Well, is it still safe?" She asked.

"Yes."

"What's the issue, then?" Wesker turned toward him, towering over the tiny man hunched in the chair in the corner.

"Does that look like Claire to you?"

"I thought Claire was due to be leaving Kijuju." Excella stated, Jill stared at the floor, concentrating on keeping her breathing steady as not to give away—

The device begun to burn, pulses of electricity rattling through her rib cage, "Jillian?" Wesker asked. She groaned, curling in on herself and to the floor, "Would you be a dear and identify the woman in this footage for us."

"It's grainy. Hard to get a guess on the face." Irving stated.

"She'll know." The pain stopped, leaving a phantom of aches through her muscles. She panted, on all fours on the tile floor.

"I don't know." She was determined not to. The video was grainy, captured by cameras across the street of a faraway figure climbing over a chain link fence, and then proceeding to tangle herself in the barbed wire on her way out. Long reddish, a lanky body with the same damn leather boots which Jill barrowed one time, though now she couldn't remember the location.

It was blurry, but familiar. Maybe she was being overly hopeful, or maybe that they'd already planted the idea in her head, "Who's the driver?"

"No idea." Irving's voice was far away with the blood knocking in her ears. Claire was still in Kijuju and she'd missed her opportunity to get away. A low moan from deep in her throat as Wesker turned the device back on.

"Tell us, do you recognize her?"

"No." Jill stated, "I don't." Her teeth clenched. She hadn't felt much of anything in months after Chris died, but now she did. This week it seemed she couldn't stop the feelings, the overwhelming gratitude of no longer being in Kijuju alone even if Claire didn't know that she was alive, it was enough for Jill. She hung her head and closed her eyes and waited for the pain to pass.

"How about this." Wesker said, "Let's play a game. I put a hit on her. If it's Claire I'll spare her life. Your call, but you'd best be sure."

He was lying, he had to be. At some point, the device had stopped working, but a different pain in her chest replaced it, "It's not Claire." Jill said again, fairly certain she was lying, "I can't tell, I can't. It's too far away."

"What does it matter? They robbed a vet hospital. They had no idea the real payout was twenty meters away." Excella said.

Jill hoped her choice was the right one. As she stared at the video on loop on the screen, she was almost undoubtedly sure it was Claire, "You positive?" Wesker asked, running his hand down the back of her head.

"No. It's blurry." She said again, "I can't be sure of anything but I don't think so. Really."

He sighed, turning from Jill and opening his phone, "There was a robbery off of Line Street last night…Think you can hunt down who it was?" More talking, but she tuned it out.

 _Watch your back Claire. You know how to. Please tell me, whatever you were doing at that place, you're as far away as possible._

Because even if she couldn't protect herself, she had a chance at protecting Claire. Jill clung to it.

"You better not be lying to me, Valentine." Wesker snarled, "Because." He trailed off, the device turned on again, stronger, "You will do as I say. You will get to your feet." She did, finding herself following his orders for her own self-preservation and the pain subsiding, "Because soon, this will be working. Walk across the room." Pain searing through her chest, this time making it hard to think almost impossible. Jill did, earning a brief reprieve where she bend over and clutched at her chest.

Another jolt.

"Don't touch it."

Another jolt,

"You understand?"

Another jolt,

"Answer me, Jillian."

"Ah…yes."

She was done, ready to be done. She was too tired for this, fighting some kind of illness as it was. Jill didn't have the will to fight him on it anymore, maybe she would in the morning, after a sleep. The sooner she gave him false hope now the sooner he'd let her go.

Her hands dropped to her sides, "Because soon you won't be able to resist what I tell you and you won't be the only one. There will be an army of you, and you will be provided for. But you, you Jill, you remember how much trouble you've been even after all I've done for you." He turned it on again, bringing her to her knees.

"She's had enough!" Irving said, somewhere. A flurry of activity, Jill wasn't sure what was going on. But Excella was shouting at him, reminding him of something he had to do, screaming about the bigger picture. It hurt, she couldn't focus.

"Stand up, Jillian, push through you pain." Wesker's boots came into her view, "Earn your reprieve." She pushed herself up on shaking limbs, and fought to her feet. He gripped her throat.

"Remember, I have more like you. This technology is improving, and you're one of many. Soon you won't have a choice, and if I find out that was Claire." His breath on her face, Jill heaved deep breaths, trying not to let herself fall back down, "I will give you a choice." Another jolt. She groaned, his grip on her neck kept her upright, "Either you kill her, or one of the others does. And if it isn't you…" He shoved her away, "I'll make sure they do it as slowly as possible." Jill crumpled to the floor, the device turned back on and she groaned, lying on her back and twisting uselessly.

"Let her stew for a while?" Excella asked.

"No." Wesker turned it off, "Oversee that my employees are properly conditioning the others. Get her back to her cell. Make sure to keep eyes on her."

* * *

Sorry. I did not plan for that whole scene at the end at all, it just sort of happened. It's not exactly mind control, but I guess it's getting there. I'm guessing for the others he's pairing it with some angel dust or something,Jill still has some tricks up her sleeve, don't lose hope.


	17. Chapter 17

Wow, it's been a while since I've updated, but I went back and looked and there are a huge amount of people still reading this fic. (Thanks!) So here is another chapter, just a year or so late.

As always, thank you so much to all of my readers! I'm sorry it's been another long wait, and I'm sorry for all of the typos in the previous chapter. I might go back and fix those this week….

Hope you enjoy. : )

* * *

 **Chapter 17:**

"I wonder that religion can live or die on the strength of a faint, stirring breeze. The scent trail shifts, causing the predator to miss the pounce. One god draws in the breath of life and rises; another god expires."

― **Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible**

"What's the plan?" He growled beside Sheva as they reached the barricade. Two men with guns, standing in the golden morning sun. Distantly ahead on the red dust road.

"We detour." She stepped on the break and threw the gear into reverse. Chris steadied himself with his hand against the roof of the car. Sheva gunned it. Chris clenched his teeth.

"Sheva—"

She said nothing, making a u-turn and before he realized what she was doing, turned the car down the dirt embankment to a road going the opposite direction, "SHEVA!" The back tires fishtailed on the loose soil but she wrestled the wheel straight.

"Do you want to get shot or do you want to find Jill? Kijuju's on the cusp of a coup and we don't need to get involved. We have enough issues. " She said matter of fact as soon as the car was back under control, now headed the opposite direction but alongside a dirty pond, "This is the marsh, or at least connected to it. Are we being followed?"

Chris twisted in the seat, seeing no one behind them, "We're okay." He said, staring out over the water.

"I know there's a small town a couple kilometers from here. Across the marshes…. _Merde…"_ She swore, muttering to herself, _"Où étaient les bateaux?"_

Chris turned toward her, his French was rusty at best, _"Répétez …s'il vous plait?"_

Sheva shook her head, "Boats. We need a boat. The tide will come in. We can take a boat through the marshes and bypass that barricade. One of my mother's old friends lives in the marshland. We just need to convince someone to rent us a boat."

Chris put his hood up, "When does the tide come in?"

"It's coming in now, it'll peak in an hour or so. Let's make this fast." She said, "Do you have a picture of Jill?

He did. Pulled down from the B.S.A.A. missing in action wall and folded into his pocket god knew how many months prior. Jill would not appreciate even him and Claire seeing the image of her bound in the chair from Irving's phone, so he had no intention of showing it to anyone else.

The one in his pocket was an old picture of her, from Halloween with Claire when Claire decided to hand out candy to neighborhood kids who were trick or treating. He remembered Claire dressed like a witch, and drinking to the point where she'd had to lay down on the lawn. His sister always had been good at getting herself into trouble. Though the picture had been cut so it was only Jill sitting, smiling up at the camera with a bowl of Kitkats in her lap, one foot rested over Claire's legs, "I have one." He said.

"Good." Sheva whipped the car around the turn of the pond, sending up a spray of wet sandy soil. Chris steadied himself against the roof again, "You okay?"

"You drive like my sister."

The man had an airboat which he was working on. Sheva slammed on the breaks, set the keys under the visor and jumped out, "Hey!" She called, and then an exchange between them that Chris didn't understand. Sheva nodded, turning on her heel and stepping back to the car.

"So…from one to ten how attached are you to that watch?"

Chris had forgotten he was wearing one. The stolen car parked further up the bank and left in the brush, the two of them sped on the boat for the junction through the marshland, "Any idea of what Irving would want?"

"It's the oilfield! Has to be!" Sheva shouted over the noise of the engine behind them, "Irving would be looking to make money."

They stopped, on Sheva's request at a small café operated by an old friend of her late mother. A woman who poured them strong coffee and insisted they had a meal of freshly grilled fish. Chris didn't want to break in their trip, but Sheva was right: they were only as good as their last rest, and rest was seemingly a limited commodity these days.

"What are you two doing out here?" She asked, setting the plate in front of Chris.

Sheva cocked her head at him and Chris took it as a cue to pull out the photo, "Looking for someone." He muttered, shifting so he could fit his fingers into his pocket, "her." The woman snatched the photograph from him.

"Haven't seen her, I'm sorry. Most of my regulars here are the local fishermen and people who live on the waterside, you're the first American through in a while."

She handed it back and he felt himself deflate. A familiar feeling these days. For some reason his mind always trapped him in an impractical fantasy. First it was the continent, then Kijuju, and now each city. The idea that he'd somehow walk into a business or a house or cross a turn in the road and find Jill sitting there at a table or on a park bench and waiting for him. Of course it wouldn't be that simple. He wasn't an idiot. Though, his logical mind certainly didn't enjoy to entertain what condition Jill _actually in_ at the moment.

"What about a white man? Business man?" Sheva asked, "Red hair. Would have been out here a few hours ago."

She paused, "Wearing a white suit?" She asked, "Thought it was a little strange, considering the marsh water would make short work of it. He stops in and buys cigarettes and coffee on his way out."

"Yeah. That's our guy." Sheva glanced at him and it was then that he realized he'd jumped up. Though, he couldn't seem to settle himself back in, "Which direction does he head?"

She pressed her glossy lips together, shaking her head, "Out toward the ocean. I think. Never paid much attention after he left."

"Toward the oilfields?"

"They're the same direction, but you turn inland to get to the oilfield. It would be the same direction from here."

The woman left them for a moment to return to the kitchen, "How'd you get into this?" Chris asked her. Sheva shrugged her shoulders.

"My parents died when I was young. Grandmother got a lot of settlement money thrown at her and looked after me." Sheva sighed, looking out the window, "It was supposed to be a freak accident with where they were working, but there were far more questions than answers, and as I was older I started digging. No one helped me. Police said to leave it alone. Three weeks in, the lawyer I hired dropped the case, sent a refund check with no return address and stopped returning my calls."

"Not an accident?"

She still didn't look at him, dark eyed gaze settled out the window, "No. It wasn't. Well, I'm sure myself it wasn't. I still don't know what happened. But, they worked for Umbrella, and it turns out a lot of people disappeared that day, who happened to work for that company, and nobody knows why. Just a lot of money thrown out to the families in the guise of company life insurance policies and settlements." Sheva turned back to him, "I won't ever find out what really happened. But I can investigate the same things in the future. Help people."

"I'm sorry to hear." He was. Chris was no stranger to the dealings of Umbrella.

"Well. We'll get to the bottom of this and get everyone out alive. That will make up for it." Sheva took the napkin from her lap and set it on the table, "Let's get going."

He followed suit, standing.

Sheva turned to inn keeper, gripping her arm and giving her a kiss on the cheek, "Sorry to eat and run."

"No, you're just doing your job. Come back safe."

"Will do." And they were through the screen door. Another hour passed.

It was hot and muggy and the sweat running down his back wasn't doing much to improve Chris' mood.

Until he saw the refinery, that was. It made him forget the discomfort and feel a bubble of hope somewhere in his chest. Sheva pulled the airboat onto the sand. They followed a worn footpath past empty boat docks and around a built up rock and soil barrier separating the oilfield from the marsh.

Chain link construction fences held down with sandbags and tangles of barbed wire over the top of them. A guard tower stood, "What the hell were they doing here? Doesn't seem like the site would need it. We're in the middle of nowhere and it's oil, not diamonds. It's hard to steal when it's buried and you don't have equipment."

"They don't want anyone coming in here." Sheva said. She pulled out her binoculars, "Looks dead. Nobody's home."

"Think they cleared out?"

"Might have gotten wind the B.S.A.A. is coming. Irving's a paranoid man." Sheva muttered. Chris followed her along the perimeter of the fence, halfway terrified one of them was about to be shot, or handcuffed and carted off to a jail somewhere. But as the minutes passed in silence, them walking back and forth and watching the camp, it seemed no one was there after all. No one cared they were visiting, and if they did they weren't around to say it.

"Let's go. Fuck it."

Sheva looked at him, "And you act like I'm reckless." She muttered, but followed him through the separation in the fence where the bolts holding together the bottom of the panels rusted through and were never replaced. Chris grimaced as his chest and back scraped the old, sharp chain link pieces sticking out.

Tents set up in neat rows, the military kind with thick olive green nylon and cables. Tall enough to stand and live in. The door from one rippled on the breeze—left open. In the distance, oil drills and refinery equipment stood, fluid in a mirage from the hot air rising off the ground.

"They had staff living here? Prisoners working, maybe?" Sheva said.

"I wouldn't be shocked." The guard tower was empty as he climbed up. A lone, rusted folding chair sitting there. _Well, they're gone_. Chris went to the first tent, this one with the flaps tied open and fans still running, buzzing uselessly in the heat. A filing cabinet had the drawers ripped out. Cots left unmade with rumpled white sheets.

"They cleared out fast." Sheva breathed. But he felt the energy surge him.

"They left something!" He said, not sure what evidence he was going off but was certain in that moment. They couldn't have taken everything. There had to be one clue, one little scrap left behind which could answer some of his terrible burning questions.

"This was a field hospital." Sheva told him.

"What?" He spun around, asking absentmindedly as she pointed. A bent IV stand which was left and laying on the ground.

Into the next tent. A pair of handcuffs attached to the bedrail closest to the nylon wall. Chris gritted his teeth, "What the hell?" The same set up. Cots set up in rows like pictures from field hospitals at distant wars. Though, these sheets were clean, neatly tucked in with fresh paper pillows—this one had been cleaned. A locked case against the wall where Sheva forced open the flimsy plastic with her survival knife. Syringes in their sterile wrappings waiting for use, some cheap hot pink rubber stethoscopes wrapped in the plastic they came in. Sheva had her phone out, using it to take pictures.

"Nothing illegal yet." Chris muttered, "No sign of whoever worked here."

The next tent was an office. A messy desk filled with scribbled notes about appointments. For what the appointments were was unclear.

A plastic sleeved page under the illegible calendar caught his attention. It was typed.

NEW SUBJECTS ARRIVING 3/11

458—FEMALE, 28

459—MALE, 21

460—MALE, 39

461—FEMALE, 19

462—MALE, 25

Sternal implants have been installed with .1 mg/hr dosage timing. Follow hot blood procedures. To request extra personal protective equipment (PPE) please contact your local safety officer, Excella Gionne.

Subjects are to remain sedated. Begin Tempura® doses based on weight chart provided. DO NOT dose beyond chart.

Chris about shoved the memo into Sheva's hands. She scanned it, "Excella! She's our connection to Tricell! I've sat in meetings with her!"

"Guess who also works with Tricell." Chris growled rhetorically.

"Irving." She answered, placing the memo back onto the desk, "We don't know this is Tricell."

"They're doing human experimentation. It's right there in writing. They're the same trash from Umbrella."

"No…" Sheva trailed off, she pressed her lips together, whirling around the tent, "No, no. They must have caught wind…of us…they cleared out of here. Tempura is a drug going on the market in the next year or so, still in clinical trials. It's supposed to be for anxiety."

"Tricell make it?" Chris tried. Her knowing didn't surprise him. She subscribed to a medical journal and would always read off headlines to him while they were at the preserve. _There's a new gene therapy to reverse ALS in trials, interesting, huh?_

"Don't know, but it would seem like it. Let's find Jill. I want out of here, and I'm sure she's had to put up with this shit much longer than I have." Sheva said. Chris followed her out the door.

A terrible squeal sounded too close for comfort. The sort of noise you never forgot, even if you wanted to. He'd heard it far too many times in his life.

"Hunters!" Sheva beat him to the proverbial punch, "Shit!"

* * *

Again, sorry this is like two years late guys. Gah! Also- sorry if the dialogue (and prose...) got a bit rough in some places. Tomorrow I finally have a day off so I might go back and fix some (maybe) Huge thank yous for reading : ) Please review!

As I've told some of you, this might become an original novel in parts and pieces just because of how far from cannon it strays in some areas. But if you'd like me to keep writing this as a RE5 novelization, please let me know! I'm having tons of fun with it either way.

Thanks again lovely readers, and thanks for sticking with the story all this time.

-Jkit45


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